HC asks 3 petitioners to plant ‘neem’ trees

A Punjab and Haryana high court judge has found new way of dealing with frequent requests from lawyers for adjourning hearing in their respective cases.

Three appellants in whose cases their lawyers were seeking frequent adjournments, the HC has asked all of them to plant 20 neem trees each. The order was passed by the bench of justice Amit Rawal on finding that adjournments were being sought every now and then by the lawyers.

The petitioners include Hoshiarpur resident, Rachpal Singh, Jai Narayan of Mahendergarh and Piyoosh Mittal of Kurukshetra. “Request is accepted provided that the appellant plants 20 ‘neem’ trees, in the area where the appeal has been filed. Compliance report be filed on the next date of hearing,” the orders passed on February 11 read in all three cases, where the next date of hearing has been fixed for May.

This was fifth adjournment in the case of Mittal who had approached the HC on February 20, 2018, and fourth in Jai Narayan’s case, whose appeal was filed on January 30, 2018. In Rachpal Singh’s case too, this was fourth adjournment sought by the lawyer on the petition filed on February 15, 2018. All these cases were of regular second appeal category under which a decree passed by a trial court orders are challenged. All these petitions were taken up at least four times since the time these were filed before the HC.