COVID-19: This High Court defers hearing of normal matters till July

The central government has extended the lockdown till May 17 but litigants and lawyers of the Punjab and Haryana high court may have to wait at least two more months for resumption of normal working of the court.

Extending the lockdown in the high court, the HC administration on Saturday decided to defer the hearings of all the routine cases till July 1 by excluding month of June as vacation period. As per schedule issued by the HC administration on Saturday, all the cases scheduled to come up for hearing from May 4 to 17, have been deferred to July 1-15 for hearing.

However, cases of urgent nature would continue to be heard by the high court via video conferencing as per already notified procedure. Several high courts in the country, including Delhi and Telangana high courts, have already decided to cancel summer vacations and will function throughout June to make up for the loss of working hours due to the lockdown.

The decision of the Punjab and Haryana high court, which is one of the largest high courts in the country having jurisdiction over two states and an UT, is sure to increase the pendency of cases in the region. Around 5.62 lakh cases are already pending before the Punjab and Haryana high court, of which more than four lakh cases are more than a year old.

As the high court has not been functioning over last two months, the closure of hearing of normal cases for two more months in the HC, would only add to the woes of litigants. With this, even lawyers, especially new entrants in the legal profession may suffer financially.

There are 55 judges in the HC at present and only around 10 cases of “urgent” nature are being heard by the HC every day since the lockdown. A section of the high court bar has suggested that if 10 cases are given to every judge for hearing every day via video conferencing, at least 500 cases can be heard daily during the lockdown.

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