PESHAWAR, Sept 29: Lawyers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are upset by the Peshawar High Court chief justice’s displeasure at their strike against the orders to lower courts for early disposal of the cases filed before Dec 2000 in line with the National Judicial Policy.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council on Saturday called an emergency meeting of its members, while several lawyers have formally requested their respective bar associations for requisitioning the general body meetings to the discuss the situation, which has arisen out of Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan’s remarks, and finalise future course of action.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council vice chairman Fazal Tawab Khan said he had convened the meeting of the council on Oct 23 asking all members to show up.

“The lawyers’ strong reaction (to the CJ remarks) forced him to call the meeting on the matter,” he said.

He urged lawyers to stay peaceful.

Also, local lawyers have submitted written requests to the respective general secretaries of PHC Bar Association and the Peshawar District Bar Association for convening the general body meetings to discuss the matter.

On last Wednesday, lawyers observed the strike on the call of the Provincial Bar Council against the high court directives to subordinate judicial officers for disposing of the ‘oldest cases’ by Sept 30.

While hearing several cases on that day, the chief justice observed that the ultimate sufferers of such strikes would be the litigant public.

He also observed that the bar council’s strike was unjustified as they had not discussed the matter with the high court.

Later on Friday, the chief justice observed that lawyers should return the fees they had received from their clients before going on strike.

A lawyer, who had filed the requisition request, told Dawn that lawyers had observed strike for almost two years for the independence of judiciary and restoration of sacked judges but at that time, the chief justice had never said that they should not observe strike but now when lawyers had been boycotting courts for their rights, he had been issuing statements against them.

The controversy surfaced of late after the Supreme Court the Supreme Court sent letters to all high courts for implementation of the 2009 National Judicial Policy (NJP) related to disposal of old cases.

The letters said initially, the deadline for disposal of old cases was Sept 30, 2011 but it was later revised many times before being fixed to July 31, 2012.

The Supreme Court pointed out to the Peshawar High Court in the letter that the examination of the monthly disposal reports for August revealed that even after the expiry of the deadline, 1,473 old cases continued to be pending with the district judiciary in the province.

In light of the said letter, PHC issued orders to all district and sessions judges on Sept 17 asking them to convey to the subordinate judiciary to dispose of the cases of the oldest category until Sept 30, saying failure to comply with the orders will lead to issuance of show cause notices to the relevant judges before action under the Efficiency and Disciplinary Rules.

The cases have been categorised as the oldest (those filed before Dec 2000), older (those filed before Dec 2005) and old (those filed before Dec 2008).