Chief Justice gets report on scam-tainted judges

HOSHIARPUR: Chief Justice of India (CJI) BN Kirpal, on Friday, confirmed having received a final report regarding the inquiry into the alleged role of three judges of Punjab and Haryana High Court in influencing the selection of their kin by Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) during the tenure of now-suspended and jailed chairman Ravinder Pal Singh Sidhu.
High court chief justice Arun B Saharya had submitted his final inquiry report to him ‘‘a few days ago’’ but he had not yet gone through it, the CJI told reporters here.
Justices Amarbir Singh Gill, M L Singhal and Mehtab Singh were divested of work from July 1 after the inquiry into their role by justice Saharya who was assisted by then Punjab intelligence chief AP Bhatnagar and Vigilance Bureau IG Chander Sekhar.
Addressing a press conference here, Kirpal said the judicial system needs to be reorganised to ensure speedy justice to the people.
Kirpal inaugurated a special state-level Lok Adalat, on Friday, at the Government College, Hoshiarpur, where 4,500 cases were settled by the 35 benches set up for the adalat.
Accompanied by Justice Ashok Bhan of the Supreme Court and Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court AB Saharya, the CJI called his visit as a homecoming. He said that he knew that many cases had been filed in the district. He said it was all the more reason that a special Lok Adalat was being held here.
Calling all judicial officers and the bar to make Hoshiarpur, the least litigative, the CJI said that the Lok Adalat was the only way to ensure quick justice. The CJI, in his address, said that Lok Adalats began in Gujarat in 1982 and more than two crore cases have been settled in the last two decades. He said that there was a proposal for an amendment in the Legal Services Act, according to which, permanent Lok Adalats could be constituted in relation to Public Utility as mentioned in the Act or notified by the government.
He said that there would be a conciliator or mediator present in each district to settle cases that could be referred to the mediator by a subordinate judge.
The Chief Justice asked the Bar to try and not extend the cases as there was enough litigation in the country and moreover it was in everybody’s interest that justice should come by speedily. Earlier, the CJI was welcomed by District Bar Association president Bikram Singh Bilga and LR Roojam, district and sessions judge. Roojam informed the audience that the District Legal Services Authority, here, in the past had organised 76 Lok Adalats in which 8,512 cases were taken up and 7,444 cases were disposed of.