Punjab and Haryana high court takes up cases through video conferencing

The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday took up two cases through video conferencing, a move taken for the first time since the court was established, in the

The Punjab and Haryana high court on Thursday took up two cases through video conferencing, a move taken for the first time since the court was established, in the wake of outbreak of coronavirus.

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The tricity — Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula — has reported 13 Covid-19 cases so far. The high court has restricted its functioning and even mentioning of the cases is being done through email.

The bench presided over by justice Jitendra Chauhan and justice Archana Puri, both of whom reside in Chandigarh, were connected through video conferencing with the lawyers appearing from Panchkula and Chandigarh and passed interim orders in two cases, which were listed for the day. The listing of cases is decided a day before it is taken up by the benches. The high court has developed an app for the purpose.

“It is for the first time in high court that judges sitting at two different locations conducted a hearing and passed an order in which lawyers too appeared through video conferencing,” Haryana’s additional advocate general Deepak Sabharwal said, “One case was of a Yamunagar resident, who was on bail for the treatment of spinal cord injury suffered in a firing incident in 2019. He had sought extension of bail to undergo a surgery. His bail was extended till July.”

In the second case, the court stayed judgment of a single-judge bench in an appointment case of 17 constables in Haryana. They were discharged during training when state authorities got to know of pending FIRs against them, a fact they failed to reveal at the time of recruitment. The single judge had dismissed their petition. The high court bench on Thursday gave interim relief to them by staying the single bench order, Haryana’s additional advocate general Deepak Balyan said.