Delhi HC bench works overtime to tackle 120 cases in a day

NEW DELHI: A charged-up vacation bench of Delhi high court on Wednesday set a record by working well past 11 in the night, with one of the last orders being dismissal of a plea by AAP leader Sanjay Singh where he wanted directions to ensure presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Parliament.
In its order signed late on Wednesday night and uploaded on the website on Thursday, a bench of justices Sangita Dhingra Sehgal and C Hari Shankar termed Singh’s plea as “politically motivated” and an abuse of the process of law, adding that such petitions deserve to be dismissed with heavy costs.It also warned Singh against that “adventurism” of this nature.
“Needless to say the present writ petition cannot be a platform for initiating a roving and fishing enquiry into the sittings of legislators in Parliament. Neither do we find any material, in the writ petition, calling for issuance of any such direction to the Speaker,” the bench added.
While the judges of high court are on their annual vacation during the month of June, as per tradition, the court holds sittings thrice a week in a rotating roster system where judges are nominated by the Chief Justice to sit during vacations. However, justices Dhingra and Hari Shankar were in for some heavy lifting on Wednesday when they found themselves flooded with an array of cases requiring urgent attention. In fact, Singh’s case was just one of the 120 odd cases the bench took up for hearing and swiftly disposed of.
Advocate Sumeet Verma, who was present in court till 11pm, told TOI that more than 100 matters were dealt with by the judges on Wednesday. “They were really patient with all lawyers. Entire court staff of both the judges was working till well past 11pm, while the judges dictated orders and signed them to ensure lawyers get it the same day.”