PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court registrar Khwaja Wajihuddin on Monday said the number of cases pending with the high and district courts had increased from 237,302 to 261,882 in the recently ended judicial year due to Covid-19 pandemic, strikes by lawyers and other reasons.

He told reporters here that the pending high court cases had totalled 42,088 at the end of Aug 2020 compared with those of 38,846 at the end of Aug 2019.

The registrar said 30,196 cases were instituted in the high court by the end of the year, while 27,092 cases were disposed of in the same period.

He said the number of cases pending with district judiciary increased from 198,456 at the end of Aug 2019 to 219,794 at the end of Aug 2020.

Mr Wajihuddin also said the district courts took up 438,938 cases and disposed of 417,397 in the period.

Registrar also complains about shortage of judges

He said had there been normal circumstances, the district judiciary pendency would have come down to 172,849 cases by the end of the judicial year.

The registrar appreciated the performance of child protection courts functioning in all seven divisional headquarters, including Peshawar, Mardan, Abbottabad, Swat DI Khan, Bannu and Kohat.

He said those courts had taken up 1,639 cases and disposed of 1,633 reducing the number of pending ones to 1,674 by the end of Aug 2020.

About the newly-merged tribal districts, Mr Wajihuddin said a total of 15,450 new cases were instituted and 13,649 were disposed of in the year leaving 6,908 pending.

He said the high and district courts faced multiple challenges, including lawyers’ strikes, Covid-19 pandemic, lack of proper infrastructure in merged districts, inadequate human resource and logistic constraints, which adversely affected their performance in terms of the execution of business and thus, leading to increase in pendency.

The registrar said an analysis conducted by the Data Analysis Wing showed that institutional performance of judiciary would have been much better during the period had there been no lawyer strikes and pandemic.

He said the high court had planned judicial performance for the next five years to promote transparency and consistency to clear backlog and provide expeditious justice to people to improve the image of the judicial system.

Mr Wajihuddin said there was a shortage of judges in the high and district courts.

He said the issue of recruiting 22 additional district and sessions judges and 100 civil judges-cum-judicial magistrates had been lingering on for the last two years despite several reminders issued to the government.

The registrar said after merger of tribal districts with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, it was decided in principle to enhance the sanctioned strength of high court judges from 20 to 25 but that decision had so far not been implemented by the government.

He said burden on the existing courts had also increased due to the introduction of new laws, including the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Control of Narcotics Substance Act, 2019, as the number of cases had increased manifold.

Mr Wajihuddin said three of the additional sessions judges had been appointed as presiding officers of exclusive child protection courts.

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2020