Shortage of judges: High court judge faints after day’s load of work

Only eight judges working against sanctioned strength of 40.

KARACHI:

A shortage of judges and mounting work load has started affecting the health of judges. For the first time in recent memory, a judge of the Sindh High Court fell unconscious while entering his chamber after a day’s hard work on Tuesday afternoon, The Express Tribune learnt from sources at the court.

Eyewitnesses said that the judge, Aqil Ahmad Abbasi, suffered a blackout and collapsed to the ground as soon as he stepped into his chamber. He was fatigued by the heavy work load, said the reader of the senior member of the bench.

It is now more than a year that the high court has been working with only eight judges at the principal seat of Karachi even though it is supposed to have a strength of 40.

Hundreds of cases are being fixed every day before each of the two division benches and three single judges. The judges worked till 5:30pm the entire of last week due to the large number of cases requiring urgent hearings in matters such as bail, restraining orders, etc.

Chief Justice Mushir Alam, is hearing cases as a single judge due to his pre-occupation as a member of the Memogate Commission which has been extended for two more months.

This leaves the high court with only seven judges to hear hundreds of cases in Karachi.

The situation is worse at the other benches in Hyderabad, Larkana and Sukkur.

More than 160 cases were fixed on Tuesday before division bench I out of which only 46 could be heard. The same happened at the division bench II where over 80 per cent of cases were adjourned due to paucity of time.

The daily institutions or filing of new cases averages between 150 to 170 and with each passing day, the backlog grows, a staffer of the high court said.

SHC CJ Alam had sounded optimistic last Friday when he said that some judges would be appointed by mid-February. But this now appears to be a remote possibility as no meeting of the Judicial Commission has been convened so far.

Human rights activist Zia Ahmed Awan advocate said that after the lawyers’ movement for the restoration of an independent judiciary, people had developed great expectations from the judiciary. “However, now people have lost hope and their frustration is increasing day by day,” he said.

Emergency measures are needed to fill the gap as every one including litigants and lawyers are suffering, he said, adding that, “Judges are under severe stress. They often lose their tempers in court due to the heavy work load.”

Muhammad Ashraf Samoo, the ex-president of the Malir Bar Association, said that when instead of 40 judges only ten work, then pressure and fatigue is natural. It is for the Judicial Commission to expedite the appointments.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 8^th, 2012.