Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 4
More than a year after the names of five advocates were forwarded by the Punjab and Haryana High collegium for elevation as Judges, the Supreme Court Collegium has recommended four names. Once appointed, the number of high court judges will go up to 49 against the sanctioned strength of 85, provided the process is completed before the retirement of sitting Judges.
Collegium recommends 82 more names for appointment as HC judges
Available information suggests the names of advocates Vikas Suri, Vinod Sharma Bhardwaj, Pankaj Jain, and Jasjit Singh Bedi were cleared by the Supreme Court collegium in its meeting held on September 1. The names were finalised and forwarded by the high court collegium in August last year. These were further forwarded by the Centre to the Supreme Court as late as April this year.
The process of appointing judges is lengthy and time-consuming. Once cleared by the states and the governors, the file containing the names with intelligence bureau reports is placed before the Supreme Court when it meets. The names cleared for elevation are then sent to union law ministry before their warrants of appointment are signed by the President. The process can take several months, if not taken up on a priority basis. Already seven judges have retired this year and another Judge is scheduled to retire in December. Another five Judges are retiring next year.
The problem of plenty continues to be a matter of concern for the high court. National Judicial Data Grid — the monitoring tool to identify, manage, and reduce pendency of cases — indicates the pendency of 4,51,237 cases in the high court. Out of the total pendency cases in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, 1,68,028 are criminal matters, predominantly involving life and liberty.
Otherwise, 77,282 or 17.13 per cent of the total pending cases are up to a year old; 1,14,694 or 25.42 per cent are pending between one and three years; 86130 or 19.09 per cent are pending between 10 and 20 years, and 9905 or 2.2 per cases are awaiting adjudication for last 20 to 30 years.
To make the matters worse, the high court is expected to witness an unmanageable flood of litigation once it reopens for normal “physical” operations. Available information suggests a substantial number of cases, filed but yet to be numbered, are lying in the high court registry to be taken up upon the resumption of physical hearing.
SC Collegium recommends 4 names for elevation as Punjab and Haryana HC judges
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