Shortage of judges leads to backlog of cases

Lahore: The Lahore High Court is facing a shortage of judges as only 34 are at work against the approved strength of 50 leading to a huge backlog of cases.

According to the court administration officials, Chief Justice Iftikhar Hussain Chaudhry has recommended the law ministry appoint 16 new judges. The president has to finalise the appointments. However, the president has reportedly brought down the recommended number of judges to just six and the file has been shuttling between the offices of the apex court and the top executive.

At an oath-taking ceremony for judges recently, the chief justice said he always wanted to appoint the required number of judges but it was the government that made the decisions in the end.

According to Rabbiya Bajwa, the Lahore High Court Bar Association's finance secretary, at least 70 judges were required at the court to hear the ever-increasing backlog of cases.

As things stand, only one judge out of the six supposed to work at the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) is present, and deals with the thousands of cases.

In all the provinces, thousands of cases are pending in the FSC because of the shortage of judges and for months five posts for judges at the FSC have been lying vacant. At the beginning of this year, there were 2,609 cases pending with the FSC.

Among these are 826 appeals challenging sentences, 589 against acquittal of the accused, 10 revision appeals against punishments, 129 revision appeals against increase in punishments, 76 other revision cases, 80 criminal cases, 83 murder cases, 4 Hudood cases, 13 suo motu cases, 1 criminal revision case, 509 miscellaneous and 287 general Shairat cases.