Chandigarh, July 15 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court has directed the Chandigarh administration to explore the possibility of giving an alternative site for high court's "new building" in IT Park area, abutting Panchkula. UT's proposal to allot additional land to high court in Sarangpur village may not be "practical", as the area has restricted access and is often blocked by traffic congestion at the PGIMER square, observed the bench of chief justice Sheel Nagu and justice Sanjiv Berry, while seeking a response from the administration by August 1. The court was hearing a PIL by Punjab and Haryana High Court Employees' Association secretary Vinod Dhatterwal, seeking implementation of the holistic development plan, which envisages setting up of multi-storey buildings to cater to the requirement of additional space. Catering to cases from two states and a UT, the high court complex sees a daily footfall of over 10,000 lawyers, 3,300 court employees and a large number of litigants, arriving in around 10,000 cars and thousands of two-wheelers. In coming future, the court is also likely to face shortage of court rooms and other facilities. The court has a sanctioned strength of 85 judges, with only 50-odd posts filled. If all sanctioned posts are filled, the administration would even struggle to get court rooms for all. The current site cannot be expanded as the high court building is part of the Capitol Complex, declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2016. The UNESCO committee has already stalled three ambitious projects at the Capitol Complex, including the underground multi-level parking lot, high court's holistic development plan and an AC chiller plant. Complying with a previous high court order, Chandigarh administration had allotted 14 acres in Sarangpur for expansion of the court complex. But has now been told to explore an alternative site in the IT Park area within Chandigarh. It was not immediately clear what led to these directions by the high court. The current complex is spread over around 40 acres. The site finalised for the new building should be such where in future, the entire high court could be shifted, people familiar with the development said. A lawyer associated with the case suggested that the high court had ruled out the possibility of Panchkula and Mohali as destinations for the "new building" to avoid any controversy. The court had last year observed that as per the record in the year 2014, the space requirement of the high court was 2,90,000 square feet and in the year 2018, the revised space requirement increased to 3,21,000 square feet. Apart from this, extra land for parking area was also required. After 2018, six years had gone by and the demand had been increased much more, the court had said. Notably, the Chandigarh administration and Haryana government are already in talks for a land swap deal for construction of an assembly building in the IT Park area. The move is being opposed by Punjab as it feels the development would dilute its claim on Chandigarh, the joint capital of both the states after Haryana was carved out of Punjab in 1966....