KARACHI: The number of cases pending before High Court of Sindh has increased to a new record level.
According to the sources, the Covid 19 Pandemic and related restrictions besides policy agreed between Sindh High Court administration and Sindh High Court Bar Association fixing number of cases to be placed on Daily Roster has contributed to the swelling pendency which has now reached un-surmountable figures.
A visit to any of the branches of SHC whether Civil/Original Side, Criminal Cases Branch or Petition branch, huge piles of files are a common eye sight. The staff dealing with the files, applications etc is almost submerged in piles of files.
The uniformity in deciding daily roster has vanished over previous few years and now the orders of judges passed individually are being followed by the staff who go by the instructions to save themselves from displeasure of the judge (s). In case of a single judge of SHC, the verbal orders were to fix ten old cases and 10 urgent case only per day.
The judge sahib is observing fast and we have been ordered to do so. On a failure, we are called and asked to explain non compliance of orders, a court staff told Customnews.Pk.
Such orders are a new addition to the history of SHC where normally these powers vests only with Chief Justice of SHC. The Registrar then implement the orders by issuing notification and subsequent instructions to head of different branches of HC.
The number of cases to be fixed each day kept at 50 to ensure the speedy disposal of cases as prior to this decision, more than 100 cases were fixed before benches out which only 30-40 were heard in routine and the rest were discharged for un-specified date. The decision failed to increase the rate of disposal and instead is catering to huge back log of cases with litigants suffering badly.