Made It A 'Fairy Tale' : Punjab & Haryana High Court Pulls Up Judicial Officers For Taking Plea “Leisurely” With Long Adjournments

The Punjab & Haryana High Court criticised the Judicial Officers for delay in disposing of the plea for cancellation of suspension of sentence in a Negotiable Instrument Act case.

Observing that the plea is pending since 2021 and adjourned on multiple occasions, the bench of Justice Mahabir Singh Sindhu said, “A perusal of the above extract clearly reveals that the officers who remained associated with the matter, took it leisurely and instead of treating the appeal as ‘judicial proceedings’, made it virtually a ‘fairy tale’.”

These observation came in response to the plea filed under Section 482 of CrPC for issuance of a direction to dispose off the pending application for cancelling the suspension of sentence of accused in a time-bound manner.

The application was filed in February, 2021 and it is pending since then with multiple adjournments.

“it appears that the application for cancelling the suspension of sentence order dated 18.02.2021 remained pending for more than nine occasions for filing reply by the appellant-accused and ultimately the reply was filed by the appellant-accused on 18.10.2022,” noted the Court.

The plea was disposed off with the direction to decide it “expeditiously”, in accordance with the law.

The Court further directed that a copy of the order be sent to the Director, “Chandigarh Judicial Academy for sensitizing the officers in such like cases to save the precious Court time; rather than granting adjournments in routine.”

Case Title: Dheeraj Bansal v. M/s Mehar Chand Jewellers and another

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (PH)158

Appearance: Dr. Rau P.S. Girwar, Advocate for the petitioner

Click here to read/download the order.