Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 8
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has claimed that approximately 4.5 lakh cases were pending before it and not 7 lakh as reflected earlier on the National Judicial Data Grid due to software mismatch.
The High Court also claimed disposal of 90,543 cases out of 1,37,101 filed since March 2020, when it went into restrictive functioning mode following Covid outbreak.
High Court Registrar Vigilance-cum-PRO Vikram Aggarwal said 7 lakh figure was earlier appearing due to mismatch between software “Case Information System” and “Integrated Software for High Court”. As a result, the disposal of cases was not being reflected on the NJDG.
“The requisite data synchronisation has been done. As a result of the same, the current pendency in the High Court is 4.5 lakh cases approximately. This figure is expected to further come down once the softwares are fully synchronised,” Registrar Aggarwal added.
He added 4,42,693 cases out of 7,23,041 filed in the District Courts of Punjab from April 1, 2020, to July 31, 2021, were disposed of. In Haryana, 7,37,718 cases were filed and 3,93,831 disposed of. Out of 39,595 cases filed in UT District Courts, 27,767 were disposed of.
He added limited physical hearing in the High Court from February 8 had to be suspended as the second wave turned severe, affecting judges, judicial officers, advocates and staff. It was forced to go back to restrictive functioning from April 19. But all Benches kept on functioning through the virtual mode.
Following “massive surge” in cases, the functioning had to be restricted further from April 28. “Once the severity of the second wave reduced, all Benches started functioning again through the virtual mode from July 28hellip;. All efforts were being made to hear all urgent matters. On any given day, more than 2,000 cases are being listed for hearing,” he said, adding that limited physical had resumed again from September 6.
“It is, therefore, evident that the High Court, as an institution, did its best under the extremely adverse circumstances and constraints to fulfill its obligations towards the citizens,” he concluded.
4.5 lakh cases pending before Punjab and Haryana HC
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