Justice S N Satyanarayana, who had joined the High Court of Punjab and Haryana 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 High Court till his superannuation on Jan 14. It would be a record of sorts in the Punjab and Haryana HC where a HC Judge completed his entire tenure without holding Court physically. This happened due to the Coronavirus 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 8 Judges of the Punjab and Haryana HC were scheduled to retire in 2021. Of these, 2 judges - Justice Daya Chaudhary retired on Jan 9 and Justice S N Satyanarayana retired on Jan 14. 6 other Judges, who are due to retire this year include Justice Rekha Mittal on Saturday (January 16), Justice Nirmaljit Kaur on Jan 27, Justice Hari Pal Verma on April 5, Justice Jitendra Kumar Chauhan on June 5, Justice Arun Kumar Tyagi on Aug 31 and Justice Sudip Ahluwalia on Dec 30.

With the retirement of four Judges this month, the current strength of the Judges of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana would drop to 48 against the sanctioned strength of 85 Judges. The Punjab and Haryana HC is one of the largest HC's 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 HC and shortage of judges has also increased the pendency of cases at the HC. As per data procured by the news agency from the National Judicial Data Grid on Friday, a total of 641,722 cases are currently pending before the Punjab and Haryana HC, of which 374,563 are civil cases and 267,159 criminal cases are pending before the HC.

Pendency Before The Punjab And Haryana High Court

Period Civil Cases Criminal Cases TOTAL

0-1 years 38,833 62,204 101,037
1-3 years 125,807------- 105,830 231,637
3-5 years---------- 65,887--------- 31,900------------- 97,787
5-10 years-------- 66,398--------- 41,793------------ 108,191
10-20 years------ 67,597--------- 24,954------------ 92,551
20-30 years------ 10,041--------- 478------------- 10,519
TOTAL------------- 374,563------ 267,159 641,722
Data Source: National Judicial Data Grid as on January 14, 2021 

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