Five new judges take oath at Punjab and Haryana High Court, strength rises to 50

After the new appointments, the total number of judges in the Punjab and Haryana High Court will rise to 50, against the sanctioned strength of 85. As many as seven judges have retired this year, with another judge scheduled to retire in December.

The swearing-in ceremony of the five new judges was held at the High Court auditorium, and was attended by all judges of the High Court.

The names of Advocate Vikas Suri, Senior Advocates, Vinod Sharma Bhardwaj, Pankaj Jain, and Jasjit Singh Bedi, were cleared by the SC collegium in its meeting held on September 1 this year. The name of Sandeep Moudgil was cleared on September 29. The names of all the five for elevation as judges had been finalised and forwarded by the High Court collegium to the Centre in August last year. The Centre forwarded the names to the Supreme Court collegium in April this year.

As per available information, Advocates, Pankaj Jain, who had been representing UT Chandigarh, as a Senior Standing Counsel, and Vinod Sharma Bhardwaj, have been designated as Senior Advocates recently in May 2021.

Advocate Vinod Sharma Bhardwaj has been practicing on the civil side and has dealt with Constitutional matters. Sandeep Moudgil has been representing Haryana as an Additional Advocate-General, while Jasjit Singh Bedi, is a practicing criminal lawyer. Bedi is the son of former High Court judge, HS Bedi (Justice retired).

Vikas Suri, had been practicing on the civil side and had been the Senior Standing Counsel for Employees State Insurance Corporation (Haryana Region). Suri has also been conducting cases for the Punjab and Haryana High Court at Chandigarh and its subordinate courts since March 2010. He had also been the Additional Government Pleader (High Court) for Chandigarh Administration from 2007-2015, and also had been counsel for Haryana Power Utilities.