High court in self-correction mode

CHANDIGARH: In his endeavour to make Punjab and Haryana High Court one of the best courts in the country as far as disposal of cases is concerned, chief justice Tirath Singh Thakur has taken yet another step towards speedy justice by seeking details of reserved judgments pending with the judges for more than three months.
In a February-11 order, registrar, judicial, stated that special secretaries, court secretaries and readers attached to the chief justice and other judges should supply a quarterly statement regarding reserved judgments that have been pending for more than three months only for the quarter ending January 31, 2009?.
The acquired details would then be placed before the chief justice for consideration. The move is aimed at ensuring timely pronouncement of judgments so that litigants do not have to wait for long.
Incidentally, the CJ, who was recently praised by Union law minister HR Bhardwaj for the measures being taken by him to improve the HC functioning, has, of late, taken a slew of measures to curb the backlog and ensure faster disposal of cases. One such step that has been widely welcomed relates to senior citizens, who would be given priority while hearing cases.
Besides, the new HC roster not only re-aligns division benches with single benches to ensure faster addressal, but also categorizes and classifies certain types of cases that need to be handled on urgent basis. Cases relating to senior citizens, remand cases from the Supreme Court and instances where proceedings were stayed in the lower court will be taken up on priority basis, an official note by registrar, judicial, Punjab and Haryana High Court, states.
Apart from this, the HC has already put in place a monitoring mechanism, headed by senior officers, to keep a close watch on the pace at which cases precede, especially those in the fast-track mode. The officers will then inform the chief justice or a panel constituted by him about the same at regular intervals.