The Punjab and Haryana High Court has issued a slew of directions for a faster and easier way to serve summons, notices and pleadings to avoid delay in disposal of proceedings before the Revenue Courts in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh.

“It is the need of the hour that in order to avoid any undue disposal of the proceedings pending before the Revenue Courts wherein the intention of a party in possession is to delay the proceedings by adopting one or the other tactic, it is necessary to issue the following directions to both the Chief Secretaries for the States of Punjab and Haryana, as well as the Administrator, U.T., Chandigarh, to the following effect to issue necessary guidelines to all the Revenue Courts, defined under all the local Acts,” Justice Arvind Singh Sangwan observed.

Justice Sangwan directed that services of notices, summons and exchange of pleadings may be done by e-mail, FAX and messaging apps such as Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal, etc. The court further directed that all Revenue Courts shall insist upon the parties, as well as their Advocates representing them to provide their e-mail address, Phone number with WhatsApp.

Justice Sangwan further said that all notices to the lawyers in future may be issued through e-mail or other commonly used instant messaging services.

The bench also called for doing away with the procedure of “munadi”, an obsolete method of drawing public attention through the beating of drums in cases where a party was avoiding the service of summons.

“...if the service of the summons is not effect on the very next date, by adopting the aforesaid methods additionally to the discretion of the Revenue Courts, publication be ordered in a newspaper,” the bench directed.

The bench also directed the appellate/revisional Courts to not insist on original records during the filing of appeals or revisions and that only the scanned copy/photocopy of the record be called for so that the proceedings could continue without any delay.

The court directed the Registrar-General of the High Court to communicate the order to the Chief Secretaries of Punjab and Haryana, as well as the UT Administrator, for necessary compliance. Directions were also issued for the filing of a compliance affidavit before the next date of hearing.

The directions were passed in a contempt petition filed alleging non-compliance of a court order, wherein a direction was issued to dispose of a partition application within six months considering the fact that the plea had been pending for the last 19 years.

The delay was attributed to the fact that original records were not available in the Revenue Court that was hearing the matter. Another reason for delay was attributed to the fact that despite issuing repeated notices to the parties, the summons could not be served.

“It is a matter of common knowledge that a person, who is in possession of the land and want to avoid the finalization of partition proceedings…the proceedings remained in abeyance just to await the original record before the Court of original jurisdiction,” the bench observed.

The court noted that non-effecting of the summons on the parties was another mode being adopted for delaying the proceedings.

The bench, while passing the directions, relied on the judgments of the Supreme Court in Krishna Veni Nagam vs Harish Nagam, 2017(2) RCR (Civil) 358 and In Re Cognizance For Extension of Limitation, 2020(9) SCC 468, wherein the top court has held that service of notices, summons and exchange of pleadings can be done by e-mail, FAX and commonly used instant messaging services, such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc.

Case Title: Amar Singh vs. Sanjeev Kumar COCP-959/2023 (O&M)

Appearance:

For the Petitioner: Mr. Vineet Chaudhary

For the Respondent: Mr. Harsh Vardhan Shehrawat

Click Here To Read/Download Order