Karthik (IT Professional) 05 November 2022

What does po is vacant mean?

It's not important to go through the entire discussion to answer my question but this is related an earlier thread created by me Father's illegal second wife and his progeny. I cannot add my reply there as my last question about few months back is unanswered.

We have filed two cases on our father about a year back, one by Police under 494 and 498(a) for bigamy and other under DVC filed by the lawyer we hired. For both the cases we see the updates in eCourts app for multiple dates recently in case history as as "PO Is on Vacant. Case is Posted To {DD.MM.YYYY}" or "PO Is Vacant. Case Is Posted to {DD.MM.YYYY}". {DD.MM.YYYY} is some date. Both sentences mean the same though wording is slightly different.

We weren't notified either by Police or by our Lawyer to attend the court for the above dates where we see this updates in case history. My question is: What does PO is Vacant mean? I know PO means Presiding Officer (the Judge) but to me it doesn't specifically mean that PO is on some kind of leave when it says PO is "Vacant". Does it mean that PO is not present due to some reason? Or does it mean that we've wasted PO time by not attending and so he was "Vacant"? I didn't find any answer for this "PO is Vacant" thing in Google search.

Please clarify.

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LCI Thought Leader Sanjeev Duggal Advocate 27 October 2023

Greetings,

PO is vacant means that the post of Presiding officer (judge) is vacant or not appointed. According to the facts provided by you, here PO is vacant means that the seat of the concerned judge is vacant and the matter will be taken over to another incharge judge.

You can get more details about the same from someone in the court. You can visit the court where your case is pending. You will get details about the judge to whom your case has been transferred and you will get a new date accordingly.

If the PO would have been on leave, then the same would have been written as: “PO is on leave”. But this means that the Presiding officer is on leave and is not available to hear cases for a particular period of time.

Hope this helps. Contact further for more information.