Look into pendency of cases in all dists: Punjab and Haryana High Court

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 18

The Punjab and Haryana HC has asked its Registrar-General to look into the pendency of cases in “every district” after noticing that the backlog was phenomenally high before a court in Amritsar. As many as 3,000 cases were pending before the court. Of these, 1,050 were sessions trials — 650 cases under the NDPS Act and 400 under the IPC.

Justice Gurvinder Singh Gill directed the placing of the matter before the Registrar-General since it was noticed that the pendency before the court concerned was “phenomenally on the higher side”. The Registrar-General was asked to look into the matter and to see “whether it was only in the court of presiding officer concerned that the pendency of files is on the higher side or is it so in every district”.

Justice Gill also directed considering the feasibility of posting “some additional officer” in case it was found that the number of files per officer was exceptionally higher in Amritsar. This could be done during the next general transfer or even before “in case there was any reshuffling/ posting of officers, which of course would be considered subject to the approval of the Chief Justice.

The matter was brought to Justice Gill’s notice after petitioner-complainant Ram Dev moved the HC against the state of Punjab and others respondents. He was seeking directions to the court of an additional sessions judge in Amritsar district to dispose of within a fixed timeframe the trial in an FIR registered on May 11, 2018, at the Gate Hakima police station for abetment to suicide and another offence under Sections 306 and 34 of the IPC.

In response to an order passed in August calling for a status report from the presiding officer concerned, it was stated the courts had been working restrictively for the last one and a half years following the outbreak of the pandemic. Currently, priority was being given to cases where accused were in custody by fixing short dates. Long dates, on the other hand, were fixed in other cases due to high pendency.

Justice Gill said: “In such a scenario, even if 50 sessions trials are fixed daily, it would be only after about a month, with average 20 working days, that the turn of the case would come for next hearing.”

3,000 Cases pending in Amritsar court
1,050 Are sessions trials
650 Under NDPS Act
400 Under IPC

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