Justice Mr. Sanjiv Barry and 8 other Judges Elevated for Punja & Haryana High Court
The elevation of Registrar Mr. Sanjiv Berry and 8 other Judges clear by the Supreme Cort Collegium. For the first time, the Punjab and Haryana High Court will have 13 women Judges, with the Supreme Court Collegium clearing the elevation of nine judicial officers from Punjab and Haryana. Prior to this, the High Court had a record of 10 women Judges.
The last time judicial officers were elevated as HC Judges was on November 28, 2019. The High Court currently has eight women Judges — Justice Ritu Bahri, Justice Lisa Gill, Justice Jaishree Thakur, Justice Manjari Nehru Kaul, Justice Alka Sarin, Justice Meenakshi I. Mehta, Justice Archana Puri, and Justice Nidhi Gupta.
The judicial officers whose names have been cleared by the Collegium are Gurbir Singh, Deepak Gupta, Amarjot Bhatti, Ritu Tagore, Manisha Batra, Harpreet Kaur Jeewan, Sukhvinder Kaur, Sanjiv Berry and Vikram Aggarwal. Five of them are from Punjab and the rest from Haryana. The High Court now has another “first” to its credit. The number of HC Judges will for the first time cross the 60 mark. The HC currently has 56 Judges against the sanctioned strength of 85. The number will go up to 65 once the judicial officers are administered oath following their appointment by the President after their names are cleared by the law ministry.
The recommendations come at a time when the HC is staring at a crisis, with more than 10 Judges retiring by next year. Justice Rajan Gupta of the Punjab and Haryana HC, posted as a Judge of the Patna HC, retires this month. The Judges retiring next year are Justice Tejinder Singh Dhindsa, Justice Harinder Singh Sidhu, Justice BS Walia, Justice Jaishree Thakur, Justice Harminder Singh Madaan, Justice Sudhir Mittal, Justice Harnaresh Singh Gill and Justice Ashok Kumar Verma. Justice Jaswant Singh and Justice Sabina, who have been transferred out, will retire next year too. The tenure of the Chief Justice of the Allahabad HC, Justice Rajesh Bindal, whose parent HC is Punjab and Haryana, ends in April 2023, if not elevated to the SC. National Judicial Data Grid figures reveal that the Punjab and Haryana HC has more than 4,45,229 pending cases, including 1,65,360 criminal matters. It is suspected that many of the petitioners in these cases are no more. The collegium has also recommended the elevation of six judicial officers and two lawyers as judges of the Bombay HC. The SC Collegium has recommended confirmation of three additional judges as permanent judges of the Karnataka High Court.
