The appointment of ten judicial officials and an advocate as new judges of the Punjab and Haryana high courts was officially announced by the central government.
Five ladies are included in the appointments. Kuldip Tewari, a lawyer and additional advocate general for Haryana, as well as the judicial officers Gurbir Singh, Deepak Gupta, Amarjot Bhatti, Ritu Tagore, Manisha Batra, Harpreet Kaur Jeewan, Sukhvinder Kaur, Sanjiv Berry, and Vikram Aggarwal, have been named as additional judges. Berry is the high court registrar general.
According to officials, with these appointments, the Punjab and Haryana high court now has 66 judges, which is a record high since it first opened. 85 judges are authorised to serve in the high court. The appointment of additional judges was announced by the Law Ministry in a notification dated November 1, 2022.
The High Court is currently facing a problem since more than 10 judges will be retiring by the end of the year. The following judges will be leaving their positions in the coming year: Justices Tejinder Singh Dhindsa, Harinder Singh Sidhu, B.S. Walia, Jaishree Thakur, Harminder Singh Madaan, Sudhir Mittal, Harnaresh Singh Gill, and Ashok Kumar Verma.
Next year, Justices Jaswant Singh and Sabina would also retire from their positions as judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. If he is not appointed to the Supreme Court, Justice Rajesh Bindal’s term as Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court, whose parent high court is Punjab and Haryana, will expire in April 2023. According to data from the National Judicial Data Grid, the High Court is now handling more than 4,452,229 cases, including 1,65,360 criminal cases. Many of the petitioners in these cases are reportedly no longer present to pursue their complaints.
