India: HC constitute special benches to expedite hearing of murder references

The Punjab and Haryana high court administration has constituted 3 special benches for expeditious disposal of murder references pending before the court seeking confirmation of capital punishment.

As per the decision taken by Chief Justice Krishna Murari, 3 special benches of Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Gurvinder Singh Gill, Justice A B Chaudhari and Justice Surinder Gupta and Justice Rajan Gupta and Justice Raj Shekhar Attri would decide such cases.

On awarding the capital punishment, the trial courts in various districts, send the reference to the HC for confirmation.

With the constitution of these special 3 benches, such references would be decided expeditiously.

Information in this regard was made available to the member of high court bar by chairman of high court's computer committee, Justice Rajesh Bindal.

Other members of the committee, including Justice Surinder Gupta, Justice Arun Palli and Justice B S Walia were also present in the meeting held in the high court bar room.

The lawyers were also informed that instead of physical printouts of receipts, SMS would be sent on the registered mobile number of the applicants.

This would save paper, as around 5 lakh receipts were issued in the high court last year for filing of different applications or cases and it consumed around 800 rolls of paper, equivalent to 400 rims of A4 size paper with 500 sheets each.

Source: The Times of India, September 26, 2018

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