PHC CJ orders early disposal of cases

Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Muhammad Ibrahim Khan has taken notice of the decrease in the rate of disposal of cases as compared to the filing of new ones in district and civil courts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, declaring that the disposal rate should be more than 100%.

In this context, the PHC on Monday released a performance report of district and civil courts of the province for the month of September.

According to the report, a total of 60,783 cases were filed in Sept 2023 in which 800 cases were remanded or restored. During this month, it stated, 52,861 cases were disposed of, but compared to last month, the number of pending cases rose to 10,908, which increased from 270,356 to 281,264.

Among them, 82,732 cases were pending in district courts while 198,532 in civil courts.

In September, the rate of disposal of cases and filing of new cases was 87 per cent, which the chief justice took notice of, stating that this rate should be more than 100% because the number of new cases was high while the disposal rate was low.

“Steps need to be taken in this regard [early disposal of cases].”

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According to statistics, in September, the number of criminal cases in the district judiciary reached 99,229, while 4,348 bail applications were under hearing.

The number of drug cases in the provincial courts was 30,470, in which most cases – 5,562 – were in Peshawar.

A maximum of 17,778 criminal cases had been disposed of in these courts during a month.

According to the data, the number of family court cases in September was 16,725, in which the number of cases in Peshawar was the highest at 2,567.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 14^th, 2023.