LHC declines ECP's tribunal request

Says it can assign only two of its judges the task to lead election tribunals in Punjab

LAHORE:

The provincial high court in Punjab has turned down the polls oversight authority’s request to assign nine of its judges at elections tribunals to adjudicate election-related disputes.

In response to a request from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the Lahore High Court (LHC) has agreed to depute only two judges—Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar and Justice Sultan Tanvir Ahmad—for election tribunals.

The court has noted that it could not depute nine LHC judges as tribunal heads due to a shortage of judges in the high court and the rising backlog of cases as a reason. After the deputation of these two judges, the total number of high court judges in the country’s most populous province stands at 37.

No new judge has been appointed at the LHC for over two and a half years, despite the fact that the court has twice submitted lists of nominees for its vacant position to the Judicial Commission of Pakistan (JCP) since 2022. Currently, there are more than 200,000 cases pending in the LHC.

The ECP on February 16 issued a notification announcing the appointment of five judges of the Sindh High Court (SHC) and three judges of the Balochistan High Court (BHC) as election tribunals for the various areas of the two provinces.