The Supreme Court disposed of 688 cases in the last two weeks of March, leaving the pendency at 38,388 cases. According to the Supreme Court office, there were 38,245 cases pending on March 16, 2019 and another 831 new cases were added to this figure. In Islamabad 320 cases were filed, 65 cases were filed in Karachi and 338, 199 and 09 cases were filed in Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta Registries respectively.
However, due to the hard work of the judges, 688 cases were disposed of by 31st March. At the principal seat Islamabad, the benches disposed of 406 cases while 23 and 259 cases were disposed of at Karachi and Lahore Registries respectively. Presently, 24 suo motus are pending in the apex court, while in 15 suo motus the review petitions have been filed which are yet to be heard. A total of 168 human rights related cases are pending in the apex court. The major pendency is of civil cases, which are 30,000 in number.
There are also 2,500 jail petitions and one Presidential Reference pending. The reference was filed during the tenure of Pakistan Peoples Party government. Former President Asif Ali Zardari had sent the reference to apex court to reopen the ex-PM Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's trial. Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khan Khosa said despite shortage of judges, the courts are busy disposing of cases. He remarked that the courts are often blamed for pending cases, while somebody else is responsible for this. He said if 25% posts in the courts are filled then they would be able to dispose of all the pending cases in two years. He noted the pending cases in the all the courts [including Supreme Court] are 1.9 million and said that not the judges but some one else is responsible for delay in disposing of cases.
He said for population of 220 millions there are only 3,000 judges in the country. He also said that last year 1.3 million cases were disposed of, while only the Supreme Court disposed of 26,000 cases. He said the Supreme Court of USA disposed of 80 to 90 cases in past one year.
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