Judges’ salaries : SHC reserves judgment in three petitions

Decision to raise the salaries of judges was declined in Sindh on the pretext of a financial crunch.

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court’s Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Tufail H Ebrahim reserved judgments in three identical petitions seeking increased salaries for the judges of subordinate judiciary, court staff and the staff of the Sindh advocate general.

The petitioners were represented by senior counsel, Rasheed A Rizvi, Barrister Salahuddin Ahmed and Syed Haider Imam Rizvi. They said that under the National Judicial Policy, it was decided that the salaries of the judges will be equal in all the four provinces of Pakistan to ensure better working conditions, facilities, etc.

The decision was implemented in the Punjab, where salaries were raised three-fold in July 2008 and later in Balochistan also but the same thing was declined in Sindh on the pretext of a financial crunch.

More than 300 judges in Sindh are suffering from the economic crunch due to the poor salary structure, which is a violation of Articles 38 and 57 of the Constitution, argued Haider Rizvi.

The Sindh additional advocate-general, appearing for the provincial government, sought time to submit more arguments. The bench disallowed the request and said that the state has already argued the matter at length and if it intends to file more arguments then they should be done in writing within the next 10 days.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th,  2011.