ISLAMABAD: A data issued by the National Judicial Policy Making Committee (NJPMC) has showcased that more than two million cases were pending in the Supreme Court, Federal Shariat Court, high courts and the district judiciary.
Giving bifurcation of the cases, the report mentioned that 45,508 cases were pending in the Supreme Court till July 31, 188,411 cases were pending in Lahore High Court, 84,341 cases were pending in High Court of Sindh, 38,464 cases were pending in Peshawar High Court, 5,313 cases were pending in High Court of Balochistan, 15,847 cases were pending in the Islamabad High Court, 1,287,121 cases were pending in District Judiciary Punjab, 105,458 cases pending in district judiciary Sindh, 210,025 cases were pending in district judiciary Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 17,000 cases were pending in district judiciary Balochistan and 43,924 cases were pending in district judiciary Islamabad.
According to annual report of the Supreme Court, the main focus of the apex court remained to evolve mechanism for early disposal of cases so several benches were constituted even in summer vacations at Main as well as Branch Registries. However, hearings of high-profile cases including GIDC Case, reference against SC judge Justice Qazi Faez Isa were held.
The Full Court meeting held during the tenure of former Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan examined Institution and Disposal of Cases and observed that continuous rise in pendency posed a great challenge to the working and image of the apex court and resolved that issues pertaining to backlog of cases would continue to be deliberated upon till such time, the appropriate solutions were found.
During the period under review, the issues with regard to violation of human rights in the country also remained main focus and several such cases on different subjects were registered and appropriate orders passed by the court to redress the grievances of common man in the country.
Besides such actions initiated on Human Rights side, various suo motu actions were also taken which include extension of Chief of Army Staff's tenure, notice of video clip viral on social media containing derogatory, contemptuous and scandalous language against the institution of Judiciary and SC judge Justice Qazi Faez Isa by a local cleric in Rawalpindi and notice regarding the government measures to combat Coronavirus pandemic.
Accordingly, besides 2-Member or 3-Member benches, larger benches were also constituted from time to time for hearing of all such cases. In order to facilitate the litigant public on account of any emergent situation faced by them due to pendency of a case, like as bail, either before or after arrest, execution proceedings in family, rent, admission, service matters, stay and cases involving sentence up to 10 years, the policy of early fixation of such cases continued and such cases were accordingly fixed before the court from time to time.
In order to weed out the disposed of cases under Order XXXIV of Supreme Court Rules, 1980, separate section was established in 2009 where all disposed of cases are being bifurcated into two parts i.e. Part-I and Part-II under the Rules. During the period under review, many cases have been weeded out and accordingly Part-II thereof is being auctioned as per approval of the Chief Justice.
The Supreme Court also decided important cases including GIDC case where a three-member bench headed by Justice Mushir Alam ordered the federal government to recover Rs 405 billion Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (GIDC) dues from different industries in 24 installments but blocked further collection thereafter.