Accountability courts lack facilities
The Islamabad accountability court registrar on Saturday submitted a report in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on the lack of facilities at institution hearing mega-corruption cases.
The report submitted to the IHC said that 108 references were pending in three accountability courts of Islamabad and seven references in two courts of Rawalpindi.
It added that the accountability courts mainly deal with financial crimes, however, the judicial staff have little or no required qualifications for the job and therefore keep requesting for transfers.
According to the registrar there were average 70 witnesses in each case while there were some 70 volumes in each reference. However, the facility is short of staff for handling the plethora of testimonies.
The report highlighted that no appointments have been done on vacant posts despite multiple requests from judges.
The administrative judges do not get a budget for daily expenses while there was no library, CCTV control room, no frontier constabulary personnel for the security of the NAB courts in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
The report stated that there was no facility for jail trial via video link while an average of 10 suspects were arrested in each accountability case.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2021.