Lost and found: 5,000 court files found in staffers’ homes

District and sessions judge orders raids, inquiry underway.

LAHORE:

Civil judges raided court staffers’ homes and confiscated over 5,000 case files from them, The Express Tribune has learnt.

An inquiry is under way into why the ahlmads, or record keepers, of various subordinate courts had taken the files home without telling anyone. At least four ahlmads’ homes were raided. They all work for civil courts or judicial magistrates.

Lawyers said that the ahlmads had probably been bribed to make unwanted documents disappear. The ahlmads said they had been forced to take the files home because there was nowhere else to keep them.

District and Sessions Judge Mujahid Mustaqeem Ahmed set up the raiding teams about two weeks ago after receiving a tip that some staffers were taking files home. Sources said that several judges had complained to Judge Ahmed that an increasing number of case files were missing and were delaying court proceedings. The teams, consisting of civil judges and police officials, paid surprise visits to at least four ahlmads at home and found over 5,000 case files.

More than a thousand came from the house of Muhammad Iqbal. Asked why he was keeping the files at home, Iqbal told The Tribune: “I had sent the files to the record room at Aiwan-i-Adl but the officials there said there was no space for them and sent them back. So where do you suggest the files be kept?”

Muhammad Shahnawaz, who is in charge of the record room at Aiwan-i-Adl, and Mehboob Khan and Ahmed Ali, who work at the Sessions Court record room, said that it was true that there was a lack of space in the record rooms.

“We wrote a letter to the Lahore High Court about the lack of space in record rooms but we have not received a reply yet,” said Shahnawaz.

But several lawyers who spoke to this correspondent said that bribe-taking was rife among court-staffers. They said that some people bribe ahlmads to get rid of incriminating documents. They said that the staffers were not allowed to remove the files from the record room.

Sessions Court Superintendent Chaudhry Muhammad Arif said that the district and sessions judge was conducting inquiry into why the ahlmads had taken the records home and which other officials were involved.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 15^th, 2011.