District courts directed to dispose cases quickly

LAHORE: The national judicial policy making committee (NJPMC) has directed district courts to give rulings on merit instead of technical grounds, according to a statement released by the NJPMC on Saturday.

Apart from district courts, high courts have also been advised to dispose of the cases without any delays. It was noted that delays were caused because of frequent power cuts. For this the committee said that generators should arranged.

The National Judicial Policy Making Committee (NJPMC) met in Lahore on Saturday to discuss the implementation of the judicial policy and the results achieved so far. Presiding over the meeting, Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said it is mandatory to abide by all the rules and regulations of the judicial policy in order to provide justice as there is no room for short-cuts in justice.

Chief Justices of all the provincial high courts and Supreme Court (SC) registrar Dr Faqir Muhammad attended the meeting. Expressing his satisfaction over the implementation of the policy, Justice Chaudhry said the targets set in the policy were being achieved despite heavy odds.

Appreciating performance of subordinate judiciary and bar, he said judges and lawyers were working hard to meet the NJP targets adding without cooperation of bar no target could be achieved. A national judicial conference will be held by the end of the week in which all stakeholders including lawyers from across the country will be invited.

Over 500 people are expected to attend the judicial conference in Islamabad from April 16 to 18. Justice Chaudhry said that bars had pointed out some problems regarding judicial policy, which would be discussed in the meeting.