Daily orders now available on HC website : Chandigarh

In a move to provide access to court orders at one's doorstep, the Punjab and Haryana high court has started posting daily orders of cases on its website (highcourtchd.gov.in) for the information of advocates, litigants and the public.

Chief justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul has also ordered that cases relating to persons with disabilities falling under the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1955, will be heard on priority. Also, in order to decide long-pending cases in the high court at the earliest, the chief justice has issued orders to HC judges not to give dates of ordinary motion cases on Thursdays so that most of the cases with long pendency could be taken up that day.

The practice of putting up daily case orders is already in progress in the Supreme Court and the Delhi high court. Earlier, one could only see final judgments of cases on the Punjab and Haryana high court's website. A few months ago, it had been decided to provide daily/interim orders on some computers in the high court bar association as well as the advocate general offices of Punjab and Haryana.

Now, the daily orders of cases would remain on the website for 15 days, unlike final judgments, which can be seen any time. Litigants would no longer have to run after their counsel's assistant (munshi) for the daily orders by paying him the desired amount.

However, in case of disabled persons, directions have been issued to their counsels that they would mention on the right side of the index of the petition "case relating to person with disability". The counsel/petitioner would also have to add proof of the disability as provided under the Act. The judges would come to know from the daily cause list of the cases listed before them about the cases related to disabled persons so that they could be heard on priority.

Earlier, in April, looking at the urgency in cases related to the protection of runaway couples, tax and company-related matters, the high court had set up two counters for accepting digitally signed petitions filed through soft copies via pen drives, digital video disc (DVD) and compact disc (CD), along with the hard copy, so that these cases could be listed for hearing the very next day.



Source : Hindustan Times , 11th July 2013