‘Fine’ bill for frivolous cases
The federal government Friday tabled a bill in the National Assembly to empower courts in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) to penalise the filing false and frivolous litigation and unnecessary adjournments.
If passed, the Cost of Litigation Bill 2016 would amend the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 and the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898.
In the bill, under Section 35-B of Special Costs, if during proceedings of any case, the court finds that any accusation made by any party is false and vexatious to the knowledge of such party, the court shall award special costs to the party against whom the accusations were directed.
In a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during the first week of November, the federal cabinet had approved this bill as well, along with others, which were earlier cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Disposal of Legislative Case (CCLC).
Explaining the need for this bill, the government maintained that the tendency of filing false and frivolous cases and adopting baseless grounds for defence was increasing. This tendency leads to heavy expenditure for the affected parties, causing them financial losses and mental aggravation. Additionally such cases waste the court’s time and associated government resources.
If approved, the amended Section 35 would allow a party in any case to – before the final order, judgment or decree is pronounced – file a form detailing the actual costs of litigation including court fee, stamp fee, fees paid to counsel, and all other ancillary or incidental expenses.
The court shall award the actual cost of litigation under the first clause to the successful party with markup in line with the annual limit notified by the State Bank of Pakistan at the time an order, judgment or decree is passed.
Other costs shall remain at the discretion of the court, which shall have the power to determine out of what property such cost are to be paid and recovered and to give all necessary directions for this purpose.
For Section 35-A, an amendment has been proposed such that if a party to the proceedings or any other person fails to appear or comply with an order on the pre-fixed court date despite being served a notice, or seeks an adjournment for such purpose, the court shall, for sufficient cause and reasons, grant the adjournment on the condition that the party pay the ‘cost of adjournment’, which shall be set at least Rs5,000 per adjournment.
Court or public officials, however, would be exempt from such costs.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2016.
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