LHC full court approves case management plan

LAHORE: A full court meeting took place at the Lahore High Court on Saturday. It was attended by all 47 LHC judges. The main agenda of the meeting was approval of a case management plan (CMP) for 2016, said a press statement.

The honourable judges also discussed ways to ensure speedy dispensation of justice to the litigant public.

The CMP approved for 2016 includes provisions for centralised and multi-colour cause lists, formulation of time-specific dockets, constitution of special benches based on case categories, maintenance of three-month rosters, auditing of all pending cases, full day and specialised division benches and revision of objection sheets.

The meeting decided that deliberations would continue for further changes and improvements in the CMP.

The meeting agreed that the LHC should be a rules-based court. It decided that frequent adjournment of hearings should be avoided and cases should be disposed of without any delay. It observed that incomplete case files were a major cause of delays in delivery of justice. It decided that administrative judges and staff from the district courts should be engaged before regular hearings of cases. It also decided that revisions and upgrades were needed in the file preparation mechanism. The matter was referred to the LHC chief justice.

The full court decided that amendments were needed in the Order V to the Schedule of the Code of Civil Procedure of 1908 to improve the process of issuance of summons to litigants. It observed that the assistance rendered to the court by the offices of the attorney general, the advocate general and the prosecutor general was not up to the mark. It stressed that affairs at these offices needed upgrades.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 3^rd, 2016.