Chandigarh, October 25
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that senior citizens are entitled to get their cases decided on a preferential basis. The Bench further made it clear that expeditious trial was, in any case, the right of every litigant.
Justice HS Madaan was hearing a case filed by a 67-year-old petitioner aggrieved by the slow pace of proceedings on his rent petition. The ruling comes at a time when 9,31,040 cases are pending adjudication in the courts across Punjab. Of the total, 4,77,040 or 51.24 per cent of the cases are up to one year old. The National Judicial Data Grid — the monitoring tool to identify, manage and reduce the pendency of cases — indicates that 3,47,972 cases (37.37 per cent) are one to three years old. Another 20,602 or 2.21 per cent are awaiting adjudication for the past five to 10 years. No less than 92,558 cases, including 71,536 civil and 21,022 criminal matters, filed by senior citizens are pending before the courts.
The problem of plenty is expected to worsen with the courts witnessing an unmanageable flood of litigation following the reopening for normal operations. Functioning in a restricted mode for more than a year following the Covid outbreak, the courts were initially hearing a limited number of cases through videoconferencing. Although physical functioning has resumed to a large extent in the subordinate judiciary, the process of hearing matters is yet to gain momentum.
As a result of the inordinate pendency, it is suspected that many of the petitioners are no more there to pursue their grievances. When some of these cases are listed, the counsels are often at a loss in the absence of complete records or instructions. Attribute it to the shortage of judges in the subordinate judiciary or the filing of frivolous pleas and delaying tactics, the fact remains that the delay also tends to change the course of the outcome. Taking up the petition filed by Gurmeet Singh, Justice Madaan observed the petitioner had filed an ejectment petition against tenant Vipan Kumar on the ground of arrears of rent and personal necessity. The matter was pending before the Ludhiana Rent Controller. — TNS
Senior citizens entitled to get preference in case hearing: HC
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