HC judge retires without hearing case physically

HC judge retires without hearing case physically

Justice Satyanarayana Had Joined HC In May 2020

Ajay.Sura@timesgroup.com

16.01.2021

Chandigarh: Justice S N Satyanarayana, who had joined the Punjab and Haryana high court in May 2020, retired on Thursday without holding any physical court or hearing any cases physically in court during his entire tenure as the judge in Chandigarh. However, he had held court proceedings via video conferencing after joining the HC till his superannuation on January 14. It would be a record of sorts in the Punjab and Haryana high court where a high court judge completed his entire tenure without holding court physically. This happened due to the Covid-19 pandemic because of which the HC has not been holding physical court since March 2020.

Justice S N Satyanarayana had joined as a judge of the Punjab and Haryana high court on May 28 after his transfer from Karnataka high court, where he was serving as HC judge since his elevation on June 9, 2008.

A total of eight judges of the Punjab and Haryana high court were scheduled to retire in 2021. Of these, two judges - Justice Daya Chaudhary retired on January 9 and Justice S N Satyanarayana retired on January 14. Six other judges, who are due to retire this year include Justice Rekha Mittal on Saturday (January 16), Justice Nirmaljit Kaur on January 27, Justice Hari Pal Verma on April 5, Justice Jitendra Kumar Chauhan on June 5, Justice Arun Kumar Tyagi on August 31 and Justice Sudip Ahluwalia on December 30.

With the retirement of four judges this month, the current strength of the judges of the Punjab and Haryana HC would drop to 48 against the sanctioned strength of 85 judges. The Punjab and Haryana high court is one of the largest high courts of the country having jurisdiction over the states of Punjab and Haryana and UT Chandigarh.

The limited hearing of cases via video conferencing at the high court and shortage of judges has also increased the pendency of cases at the high court. As per data procured by TOI from the National Judicial Data Grid on Friday, a total of 641,722 cases are currently pending before the high court.