Delaying hearings: Civil courts not to entertain objection pleas

Judges to stop granting frequent adjournments, long gaps between hearings

RAWALPINDI: In a bid to wrap up civil cases within a year and to manage the massive backlog of cases, the government has decided not to entertain any pleas which seek to stop cases from being heard.

Usually, lawyers in lower courts used to file objections on cases under Order 7, rule 11, in order to delay hearings of the case for months of hearing.

However, following an amendment in the high court rules, courts have now stopped entertaining such pleas with the judges implementing it rigorously.

In the second phase, civil judges and session judges will stop granting frequent adjournments and setting cases for hearing after extended gaps under Order 17, rule one of the high court rules.

Earlier this year, it had emerged that there were as many as 1.87 million cases pending in courts at all levels from the district courts to the Supreme Court, across Pakistan. Of these, 38,539 cases were pending in the apex court, 293,947 with the five high courts and 1,869,886 cases with the subordinate judiciary of the four provinces and the federal capital.

In a January meeting of the National Judicial (Policy Making) Committee (NJPMC), Chief Justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar had disclosed that the courts were overburdened as he pointed out that a single judge was available to serve a population of 62,000 people in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2018.