Punjab & Haryana High Court tells govt to use artificial intelligence to identify similar cases

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, October 16

Taking cognisance of the fact that litigation was unnecessarily cropping up before the Bench in several cases despite the law being established on the issue, the High Court has –– in a first –– directed the use of artificial intelligence to identify similar matters for their disposal on the basis of the settled law.

Regularisation policy

There can be no discrimination between various departments with regard to the policy of regularisation issued as a one-time measure to give relief to daily wagers, who have been appointed by a transparent method of selection, though on a contract basis or on ad hoc basis. Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma

“Similar cases can be taken up before the Lok Adalat by giving a list to the high court. The benefit of artificial intelligence for getting the search of such matters can also be done by the state government on its own so that similar cases may also be disposed of accordingly,” Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma asserted.

The direction came as Justice Sharma asked the government to examine all cases pending before the high court on the issue of regularisation of service before taking necessary steps. The ruling came in a case where an employee was “denied regularisation benefit” of a circular/policy issued by the government on March 18, 2011, on the ground that Department of High Education was not on the list of departments mentioned in an annexure appended to the policy.

After hearing the state counsel and advocates Manu K Bhandari, Manu Gaur and Rohit Kataria for the petitioner, Justice Sharma asserted the question before the court was no more res integra –– a term applied to points of law yet to be decided.

The aspect was examined by the high court at length before being decided in August 2015. The respondents had been consistently accepting the judgment and the persons working for three or more years had been regularised, provided they fulfilled other conditions laid down in the policy.

Justice Sharma said respondents had not been able to give any reason for not including the Department of Higher Education in the annexure. Allowing the writ petition, the Bench directed respondents to pass orders for petitioner’s regularisation on the post from the date she completed three years service as contractual clerk. Directions were also issued to give her all the consequential benefits.