Punjab Haryana High Court: 100 Judges, 2.56 Million Cases Audited

# Punjab Haryana High Court: 100 Judges, 2.56 Million Cases Audited This report is produced by Judge My Lawyer, India's legal analytics platform, based on an analysis of 2,559,778 cases filed before the Punjab and Haryana High Court (PHHC). Case-level data was sourced directly from PHHC's publicly accessible case management portal. The analysis covers 100 adjudicators with meaningful caseloads and spans the court's full recorded history. The data reflects outcomes as recorded in the court's own system as of May 2026.

The Broken Promise of Speedy Justice

India's Constitution guarantees speedy justice as a fundamental right. The High Courts, as constitutional courts of record, are meant to be the last word for most litigants before the Supreme Court — a forum where unlawful state action is checked and rights are enforced. The average time a case takes to conclude before the Punjab and Haryana High Court is **5,170 days** — more than fourteen years. For the 2,073,792 cases in the dataset that carry duration records, that average is not an outlier driven by a handful of ancient dockets. It is the norm. Of 2,559,778 total cases, approximately 1,258,083 — nearly **49%** — have no final outcome recorded, meaning they remain pending or unresolved. Petitioners won in 411,651 cases (16.1%). The respondent — overwhelmingly the State of Punjab, State of Haryana, or the Union of India — prevailed in 890,044 cases (34.8%). The court records zero settlements. Every matter that does not result in a recorded victory for either side is, in practical terms, a case in limbo. ---

The Full Scorecard: All Adjudicators at PHHC

The table below covers every PHHC judge with 5,000 or more cases in the dataset, presenting the metrics that matter most for a litigant: how fast, and who wins. The table reveals a court of extraordinary contrasts. Average case duration ranges from 114 days (R.P. SETHI) to 10,810 days (K.KANNAN) — a span of nearly 30 years between the court's fastest and slowest adjudicators by this metric. Petitioner win rates range from 2.2% (MR. JUSTICE ARUN PALLI) to 57.96% (ANOOP CHITKARA) — a near-thirtyfold spread at the extremes. The court average is 16.08% for petitioner wins and 34.77% for respondent wins. Roughly 49% of cases carry no recorded outcome — nearly half of all cases filed before this court have not reached any resolved conclusion by the time of this analysis. The absence of settlements — a flat 0% across the full court — is structurally significant. Unlike consumer courts or tribunals where compromise is a routine outcome, PHHC is a writ court. Matters go to judgment or they do not go anywhere. ---

The Duration Crisis: Benches Where Cases Age in Decades

The duration figures for K.KANNAN, at 10,810 days (nearly 30 years), warrant careful reading. The case type breakdown explains part of the anomaly: K.KANNAN's Regular First Appeal docket carried an average of 64,552 days per case — a figure that can only result from cases filed in the pre-independence era or very early post-independence period being carried forward in the court's digital system with their original filing dates intact. His FAO (First Appeals from Orders) docket carries 13,131 days average (35.9 years), and Criminal Revisions 5,786 days (15.8 years). These are not cases he adjudicated slowly. They are cases inherited from a system that accumulated a generational backlog — and they appear under his name because the court's records associate them with the last assigned adjudicator. SURINDER GUPTA at 3,932 days (10.8 years) and S.S. SARON at 3,838 days (10.5 years) present a more contemporary concern. S.S. SARON handled 17,944 total cases. The top petitioner-side lawyer, VIKRAM SINGH, appeared in 176 cases before S.S. SARON with a win rate of 3.41%. AKSHAY BHAN won 18.69% of 107 appearances. JAGMOHAN BANSAL won 0.96% of 104 appearances — the lowest named-lawyer win rate in the dataset. MR JUSTICE KANWALJIT SINGH AHLUWALIA at 4,359 days shows a specific case type problem: Regular Second Appeal averaged 7,984 days (21.8 years) and CRM-M (miscellaneous criminal matters, including bail applications) averaged 7,124 days (19.5 years) on his docket. These are not unusual case types — CRM-M is routine criminal applications that should turn over in weeks under normal conditions. ---

Judge-by-Judge: The Full Profile

ARVIND SINGH SANGWAN — 44,101 Cases

**At a glance:** Total cases: 44,101 | Petitioner wins: 14,773 (33.5%) | Respondent wins: 13,300 (30.2%) | Avg duration: 436 days Dominated by CRM-M at 25,459 cases averaging 206.6 days; COCP at 5,647 cases averaging 784 days; Transfer Applications at 2,833 cases averaging 330 days; Criminal Writ Petitions at 2,072 cases averaging 65.7 days. A.G. Punjab appeared 6,076 times before Sangwan with a 46.18% win rate; A.G. Haryana 3,682 times at 46.47%; SANDEEP ARORA 208 times at 35.58%. State of Punjab appeared as respondent in 19,192 cases (won 7,252, lost 5,652); State of Haryana 9,527 times (won 3,825, lost 2,963). ARVIND SINGH SANGWAN handles the largest single-judge caseload in the dataset and his bench is the fastest of the high-volume adjudicators at 436 days average. His petitioner win rate of 33.5% is more than double the court average of 16.08%, and his respondent win rate of 30.2% is below the court average of 34.77%. The result is a relatively balanced bench. The Advocate General appearing for both Punjab and Haryana wins at rates above 46% before this bench, reflecting a large criminal miscellaneous docket where state bail applications have a higher success rate. ---

ANIL KSHETARPAL — 41,782 Cases

**At a glance:** Total cases: 41,782 | Petitioner wins: 8,639 (20.7%) | Respondent wins: 18,976 (45.4%) | Avg duration: 1,203 days A.G. Punjab appeared 3,372 times at 19.51%; A.G. Haryana 3,294 times at 26.02%; ADVOCATE GENERAL HARYANA 3,289 times at 43.14%. State of Haryana appeared as respondent 10,477 times (won 1,977, lost 5,053); State of Punjab 7,789 times (won 1,227, lost 3,841); Union of India 622 times (won 28, lost 341). Kshetarpal carries the second-largest caseload in this analysis. His average of 1,203 days (3.3 years) is nearly three times that of Sangwan. His respondent win rate of 45.42% is well above the court average of 34.77%, meaning the State prevails significantly more often before this bench than elsewhere. The Advocate General for Haryana wins 43.14% of 3,289 appearances before Kshetarpal. ---

RAJESH BINDAL — 40,849 Cases

**At a glance:** Total cases: 40,849 | Petitioner wins: 1,991 (4.9%) | Respondent wins: 15,286 (37.4%) | Avg duration: 1,121 days A.G. Haryana appeared 3,712 times with a win rate of **0.08%** — effectively zero wins in 3,712 appearances; KAMAL SEHGAL 768 appearances at 0.26%; AG HRY. 755 appearances at 0.00%. State of Haryana appeared as respondent 9,958 times (won 474, lost 3,101); State of Punjab 6,856 times (won 619, lost 2,773). At 4.87% petitioner win rate on 40,849 cases, Justice Rajesh Bindal's bench is among the most unfavorable for petitioners in the entire court. The A.G. Haryana win rate of 0.08% across 3,712 appearances reflects a docket where, when the State appears as petitioner (filing cases rather than defending), it succeeds in almost none of them. The State of Haryana, appearing as respondent 9,958 times, won 474 and lost 3,101 — the State as respondent also fares poorly here. At 1,121 days average, the bench is slower than the median for similarly-sized dockets. ---

MRS. JUSTICE MANJARI NEHRU KAUL — 36,352 Cases

**At a glance:** Total cases: 36,352 | Petitioner wins: 10,825 (29.8%) | Respondent wins: 15,658 (43.1%) | Avg duration: 338 days A.G. Punjab appeared 7,439 times at 43.11%; A.G. Haryana 4,291 times at 42.04%; ADVOCATE GENERAL HARYANA 229 times at 7.42%. State of Punjab appeared as respondent in 18,510 matters (won 6,634, lost 7,112); State of Haryana 9,652 times (won 3,278, lost 4,305); UT of Chandigarh 219 times (won 52, lost 90). Mrs. Justice Manjari Nehru Kaul's bench resolves cases in 338 days on average. Her respondent win rate of 43.1% and petitioner win rate of 29.8% both exceed court averages, meaning outcomes — whichever way they go — are being recorded on this bench in proportion. The State of Punjab appears in 18,510 matters before her — the most appearances by any single respondent before any single judge in the dataset — and loses 7,112 times while winning 6,634, an almost even split. ---

KRISHNA MURARI — 32,583 Cases

**At a glance:** Total cases: 32,583 | Petitioner wins: 9,778 (30.0%) | Respondent wins: 9,158 (28.1%) | Avg duration: 242 days A.G. Haryana appeared 384 times at 1.04%; SANDEEP ARORA 289 times at 38.75%; SANT PAL SINGH SIDHU 265 times at 36.23%. State of Punjab appeared as respondent in 15,814 cases (won 5,807, lost 3,564); State of Haryana 8,557 times (won 3,077, lost 2,254). At 242 days average across 32,583 cases, Krishna Murari is among the court's fastest high-volume judges. His bench is the most balanced in the top tier by outcome: petitioner win rate of 30.01% and respondent win rate of 28.11% sit on either side of a near-even split. SANDEEP ARORA wins 38.75% of 289 appearances; SANT PAL SINGH SIDHU wins 36.23% of 265 appearances — among the highest private-lawyer win rates in the dataset. ---

ANOOP CHITKARA — 18,134 Cases

**At a glance:** Total cases: 18,134 | Petitioner wins: 10,511 (**57.96%**) | Respondent wins: 2,276 (12.55%) | Avg duration: 348 days CRM-M: 13,641 cases, avg 274.5 days; Criminal Writ Petition: 2,935 cases, avg 45.4 days; CRM-A: 442 cases, avg 2,095 days; CRR: 424 cases, avg 1,295 days. A.G. Punjab appeared 6,275 times at **65.04%**; A.G. Haryana 3,312 times at **63.10%**. State of Punjab appeared as respondent in 10,502 cases (won 6,384, lost 1,222); State of Haryana 5,560 times (won 3,203, lost 726). **The Chitkara Pattern:** Justice Anoop Chitkara's petitioner win rate of 57.96% is 3.6 times the court average of 16.08%. No other active judge in the dataset comes close. The Advocate General of Punjab wins 65.04% of 6,275 appearances before him; A.G. Haryana wins 63.10% of 3,312 appearances. These are the top two petitioner-side lawyer win rates in the entire dataset. Two structural factors explain the pattern. First, Justice Chitkara's docket is overwhelmingly criminal: CRM-M constitutes 13,641 of his 18,134 cases. Criminal Writ Petitions average only 45.4 days before him, indicating rapid disposal. Second, when the State appears as petitioner before a criminal bench — filing bail cancellations or challenging acquittals — and the A.G. wins 65%, the outcome records as a petitioner win even though the State is prevailing. The 12.55% respondent win rate (when private parties defend) is far below the court average of 34.77%, indicating that private respondents rarely prevail before this bench. The 348-day average puts this bench in the faster half of the court. ---

S.S. SARON — 17,944 Cases

**At a glance:** Total cases: 17,944 | Petitioner wins: 1,564 (8.7%) | Respondent wins: 9,345 (52.1%) | Avg duration: 3,838 days (10.5 years) VIKRAM SINGH appeared 176 times at 3.41%; AKSHAY BHAN 107 times at 18.69%; JAGMOHAN BANSAL 104 times at 0.96%. State of Punjab appeared as respondent in 3,174 cases (won 471, lost 1,481); State of Haryana 2,639 times (won 280, lost 1,231); Union of India 696 times (won 92, lost 349). S.S. SARON's bench averages 3,838 days per case — 10.5 years. His respondent win rate of 52.08% is among the highest in the court. JAGMOHAN BANSAL's 0.96% win rate across 104 appearances before Saron is the lowest recorded for a named private lawyer in the top-appearances data. ---

HEMANT GUPTA — 24,779 Cases

**At a glance:** Total cases: 24,779 | Petitioner wins: 1,430 (5.8%) | Respondent wins: 13,622 (55.0%) | Avg duration: 2,429 days (6.6 years) VIKRAM SINGH appeared 198 times at 2.53%; SANJIV GUPTA 178 times at 3.37%; SANDEEP ARORA 162 times at 3.09%. State of Punjab appeared as respondent in 6,394 cases (won 296, lost 3,498); State of Haryana 4,332 times (won 218, lost 1,974). With 24,779 cases, Hemant Gupta is among the highest-volume adjudicators at PHHC. His petitioner win rate of 5.77% is one of the lowest in the dataset. His respondent win rate of 54.97% is the highest among judges handling more than 20,000 cases. The average case duration of 2,429 days — 6.6 years — compounds the unfavorable outcome profile for petitioners. State of Punjab wins only 296 of 6,394 cases when appearing as respondent (4.6%) — even the State struggles to secure favorable outcomes as respondent before this bench when challenged. ---

RAJBIR SEHRAWAT — 12,545 Cases

**At a glance:** Total cases: 12,545 | Petitioner wins: 2,930 (23.4%) | Respondent wins: 7,738 (**61.68%**) | Avg duration: 377 days CRM-M: 5,595 cases, avg 135.9 days; COCP: 2,781 cases, avg 416.9 days; Civil Writ Petition: 1,993 cases, avg 622.2 days. A.G. Punjab appeared 2,257 times at 41.56%; A.G. Haryana 1,414 times at 34.65%. State of Punjab as respondent: 4,219 cases (won 1,792, lost 1,741); State of Haryana: 2,251 cases (won 791, lost 994). Rajbir Sehrawat holds the highest respondent win rate in the dataset at 61.68% — meaning the State or opposing party wins nearly two-thirds of all matters before this bench. His 377-day average makes him a relatively fast adjudicator. His CRM-M average of 135.9 days is among the fastest in the court for that case type. ---

K.KANNAN — 9,384 Cases

**At a glance:** Total cases: 9,384 | Petitioner wins: 1,983 (21.1%) | Respondent wins: 4,477 (47.7%) | Avg duration: **10,810 days** (29.6 years) Civil Writ Petition: 3,227 cases, avg 1,485 days; Criminal Revision: 2,245 cases, avg **5,787 days**; FAO: 1,753 cases, avg **13,131 days**; Regular First Appeal: 708 cases, avg **64,552 days**; CRM-M: 526 cases, avg 129.9 days. A.G. Haryana appeared 206 times at 0.97%; VEENA ASHWANI TALWAR 80 times at 16.25%. State of Punjab as respondent: 1,297 cases (won 224, lost 457); State of Haryana: 1,046 cases (won 193, lost 461). K.KANNAN's Regular First Appeal average of 64,552 days — 176.8 years — cannot represent cases adjudicated during any active judicial career. These are cases filed before India was independent, carried in the court's record system with their original filing dates intact, appearing under K.KANNAN's name because they were assigned to or disposed by his docket. His CRM-M average of 129.9 days shows that contemporary bail matters moved through his bench rapidly. The extreme figures are entirely the product of inherited legacy assignments. ---

MR JUSTICE KANWALJIT SINGH AHLUWALIA — 10,299 Cases

**At a glance:** Total cases: 10,299 | Petitioner wins: 1,683 (16.3%) | Respondent wins: 3,398 (33.0%) | Avg duration: **4,359 days** (11.9 years) CRM-M: 4,174 cases, avg **7,124 days**; Civil Writ Petition: 2,307 cases, avg 273.6 days; Criminal Revision: 1,057 cases, avg **3,041 days**; Criminal Writ Petition: 816 cases, avg 70.4 days; Regular Second Appeal: 405 cases, avg **7,984 days**. The structural explanation for Ahluwalia's 4,359-day average is the same as for K.KANNAN: legacy CRM-M and Regular Second Appeal files with filing dates from earlier decades. His Criminal Writ Petition average of 70.4 days confirms that contemporary matters before him resolved quickly. ---

Lawyers Who Appear Most: The A.G. Effect

Before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, two lawyers dominate by volume of appearances: A.G. PUNJAB (Advocate General of Punjab) and A.G. HARYANA (Advocate General of Haryana). These are institutional roles representing the two States in the bulk of writ and criminal litigation. A.G. win rates vary dramatically by bench. Before ANOOP CHITKARA, A.G. Punjab wins 65.04% of 6,275 appearances. Before ARVIND SINGH SANGWAN, A.G. Punjab wins 46.18% of 6,076. Before MRS. JUSTICE MANJARI NEHRU KAUL, A.G. Punjab wins 43.11% of 7,439. Before RAJESH BINDAL, A.G. Haryana wins 0.08% of 3,712. This variation reflects the nature of cases assigned to each bench — not a uniform disposition toward or against the State. Before Chitkara, the State files criminal matters and succeeds; before Bindal, the same State appears in a different capacity and rarely prevails. Among private lawyers, SANDEEP ARORA records the most consistent named performance across multiple benches: 35.58% before Sangwan (208 cases), 38.75% before Krishna Murari (289 cases), 46.39% before Mrs. Justice Rekha Mittal (166 cases), and 3.09% before Hemant Gupta (162 cases). The variation across these benches is larger than would be expected from chance, but the case counts are small enough that subject-matter differences explain much of the spread. VIKRAM SINGH appears before multiple benches with consistently low win rates: 3.41% before S.S. SARON (176 cases), 2.53% before HEMANT GUPTA (198 cases), 9.05% before MRS. JUSTICE REKHA MITTAL (199 cases). Across these three judges, VIKRAM SINGH won approximately 5% of contested matters. ---

State as Respondent: Who Wins Where

The Punjab and Haryana High Court is primarily a government-litigation court. State of Punjab and State of Haryana appear as respondent in the overwhelming majority of matters. Their success rates before individual judges reveal which benches are more or less favorable for state action to survive judicial review. Before HEMANT GUPTA, State of Punjab appears as respondent in 6,394 cases and wins only 296 — a 4.6% success rate. Before HARSIMRAN SINGH SETHI, Punjab wins only 1,583 of 13,567 cases (11.7%) as respondent. Before ANOOP CHITKARA, the State of Punjab as respondent wins 60.8% — reflecting the criminal docket character of that bench, where State-initiated matters predominate. ---

What the Data Means

The court's defining characteristic is not any individual judge's speed or outcome — it is the institutional backlog. An average of 5,170 days across 2,559,778 cases means that fourteen years is what a case normally takes. For petitioners filing today, the statistical expectation is not swift relief but generational delay. This is a structural feature of a court that has taken on more than it can resolve at the pace its procedures allow. The variation in petitioner win rates — from 2.2% to 57.96% across active judges — is large enough to be meaningful, but the primary driver is case type, not individual judicial disposition. Justice Chitkara's 57.96% petitioner win rate is explained almost entirely by his criminal bail and criminal writ docket, where State-initiated matters predominate and succeed at high rates. Justice Bindal's 4.87% petitioner win rate reflects a Haryana-heavy civil writ docket where the State-as-respondent wins more often. The appropriate comparison for any litigant is not simply which judge has the highest petitioner win rate, but which judge handles their type of case and what outcomes look like in that specific case type before that judge. The duration data for K.KANNAN (10,810 days), MR JUSTICE KANWALJIT SINGH AHLUWALIA (4,359 days), VIRENDER SINGH (4,413 days), and SURINDER GUPTA (3,932 days) reflect a generational backlog, not current-era judicial pace. Cases filed in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s appear under the names of whichever adjudicator they were last assigned to. The CRM-M and criminal writ averages for these same judges — often under 200 days — confirm they process contemporary matters efficiently. The extreme figures are artifacts of an inherited queue that the court has not yet cleared. The court's zero settlement rate distinguishes it sharply from consumer tribunals. At PHHC, a matter either reaches a judgment or it does not. For the approximately 49% of cases without any recorded outcome, neither party has received a final ruling and the matter remains open. These are not stale administrative records — they represent active or passively pending cases where the litigants' rights remain in suspension. The respondent-win patterns before specific judges — particularly RAJBIR SEHRAWAT at 61.68%, MRS. JUSTICE MEENAKSHI I. MEHTA at 62.19%, R.P. NAGRATH at 59.71%, MR. JUSTICE ARUN PALLI at 60.92%, and SATISH KUMAR MITTAL at 57.35% — warrant attention in the context of which types of cases those benches handle. At courts where the respondent's win rate is systematically above the court average, litigants challenging government action face a steeper statistical climb. Court records show what they show. The one positive finding in the data is that a handful of judges demonstrate that speed and volume are not mutually exclusive. R.P. SETHI averages 114 days across 9,421 cases. DR. SHEKHER DHAWAN averages 204 days across 16,694. KRISHNA MURARI averages 242 days across 32,583. These are not anomalies in a slow court; they are proof that high-volume, rapid disposal is achievable at PHHC — which makes the benches averaging 2,000, 3,000, or 4,000 days harder to explain on structural grounds alone. ---

About the Data and Methodology

All 2,559,778 case records were retrieved from the Punjab and Haryana High Court's publicly accessible case management portal and processed through the Judge My Lawyer analytics pipeline. Adjudicator name consolidation mapped multiple spelling variants to single canonical names (e.g., "AG HRY.", "A.G. HARYANA", and "ADVOCATE GENERAL HARYANA" appear as separate entries in the source data and are treated as distinct in the underlying records). Duration calculations exclude cases where duration was recorded as zero. Outcome standardisation normalised variants to three categories: petitioner win, respondent win, and settled. The field labelled "petitioner" throughout this article corresponds to the complainant/petitioner in the source system. Win rate calculations are based on cases where a recorded outcome exists; pending and unresolved cases are counted separately. All figures are subject to completeness and accuracy of the court's own records. ---

Disclaimer

The findings in this report are based entirely on publicly available court records and reflect those records as of May 2026. Statistical patterns identified describe empirical regularities in the data as recorded. They do not constitute allegations of bias, partiality, misconduct, or wrongdoing against any adjudicator, advocate, or institution. Duration anomalies identified in certain dockets — particularly for K.KANNAN, MR JUSTICE KANWALJIT SINGH AHLUWALIA, VIRENDER SINGH, and SURINDER GUPTA — are consistent with legacy case assignment from pre-digital court records where filing dates from earlier decades remain attached to unresolved matters. The patterns noted for specific judges may reflect case type assignment, docket composition, historical case accumulation, administrative recording conventions, or procedural factors not visible in the public record. This report is published for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.