| Islamabad
The lawyers’ fraternity and litigants of the Federal Capital Territory who were left with huge backlog of about 10,000 pending cases after dissolution of Islamabad High Court expect that a Lahore High Court bench may be constituted to provide them interim relief.
More than 10,000 cases had been transferred from the defunct Islamabad High Court to Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench after a Supreme Court’s July 31 decision, but the lawyers bodies want expeditious disposal of their pending cases.
Expressing lawyers sentiments, Raja Inam Amin Minhas, general secretary of Islamabad High Court Bar Association, told APP here Saturday that a proposal was certainly propped up for establishment of at least two benches of Lahore High Court till a final decision over constitution of a High Court.
“Senior Justice Saqib Nisar of Lahore High Court was tasked by the Punjab Government to apprise it over the possibility of such option but he cited various Constitutional hitches and said that it was not possible. He has submitted a report saying that being enjoying a special status as federal capital, LHC Bench cannot be constituted there,” he added.
Minhas said the learned Judge had also informed government of Punjab that for setting up a LHC bench in the adjoining areas like Faizabad would be done through only constitutional amendments. Inam Amin contended that senior lawyer, Wasim Sajjad during his meeting with Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had also taken up the issue. He said Wasim Sajjad was optimistic that for provision of interim relief a LHC bench could be established in the federal Capital territory till reconstitution of an independent High Court.
A number of practicing lawyers and litigants were of the view that LHC Rawalpindi bench was already seized with hearing of about 6,000 cases while the cases transferred from the dissolved IHC took the tally to more than sixteen thousand cases, so the distance and other issues may result slow disposal of pending cases.
Sharing anguish of litigants, Raja Inam Minhas said that they were raising their voices over such state of affairs for quite some time.
The defunct IHC had decided about twelve thousand cases in one and half year. A number of senior legal practitioners including Iftikhar Gillani, Shoaib Shaheen, Ali Murad Baloch, Islamabad Bar Association President Niazullah Khan Niazi also vehemently supported the idea of IHC revival.
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