The year 2012 recorded surge in public interest cases being heard by the Peshawar High Court. The court has recently upgraded the human rights cell to the level of a directorate, which has separate wings for male and female applicants. An aggrieved person could submit a simple application attached with relevant documents to the directorate without hiring services of a lawyer.

The directorate also scans media reports and brings issues of immense public importance into the notice of chief justice. Two additional district and sessions judges, Aamir Nazir Bhatti and Ms Riffat Aamir, are heading the male and female wings of the directorate, respectively. Aggrieved persons, including women, have even been seen directly submitting their applications to the chief justice during hearing of routine cases.

Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan told a reception of court staffers the other day that last year the directorate had received 3,844 applications of which applicants were provided relief in 3,174 cases. He stated that 110 applications were converted into human rights petitions.

In one such case the chief justice had taken suo motu notice of smuggling of cattle and poultry products to Afghanistan over a report prepared by the human rights cell. On July 23, 2012 the court had suspended all export permits issued by the federal government.

The court had also ordered different departments, including provincial home department, police, anti-corruption establishment (ACE), livestock and administration of tribal agencies, to check smuggling of these products.

The court extended the stay order issued in July last and the case has now been in final stages and would be taken up for hearing on January 10.

The court has now directed the concerned federal and provincial departments to finalise modalities for export of these items to Afghanistan following which the stay order would be vacated. The court has also directed the provincial home department to issue standard operating procedure to ensure that smuggling through unfrequented routes was curbed.

Another case is related to encroachments of graveyards. Initially, the court had taken notice of the issue over application filed by Save Graveyards Movement, which claimed that Rehman Baba graveyard, the largest in the city, was originally spread over an area of 198 acres, but it has now been reduced to 74 acres. Later, the court directed the Auqaf Department and concerned district administrations all over the province to remove encroachments from graveyards.

The court also took notice of the plight of internally displaced persons in different camps, including Jalozai Camp. These IDPs were having miserable time in summer as they were without electricity and fans. The court ordered both the Provincial Disaster Management Authority and the FATA Disaster Management Authority to provide these IDPs electricity connections and electric fans. Furthermore, several orders were issued related to health and education of displaced persons.

Apart from these cases, the court also took notice of prescription of expensive medicines in government hospitals and presence of spurious drugs in the market, and in December last directed the provincial health secretary and chief executives of four major public sector hospitals to submit their respective reports. Another issue, which has still been pending before the court, is related to dumping of dead bodies stuffed in gunnysacks in parts of Peshawar and adjoining areas. Despite orders issued by the court to trace culprits behind the killings, the investigation officers so far failed in tracing any of the perpetrators.

Legal circles believe that the number of public interest cases would further increase. They say that more and more people were now filing applications before the high court for getting their grievances redressed instead of going to the government departments concerned.