PHC performance year: Tough challenge ahead for district judiciary in KP as 180,383 cases pending

PESHAWAR: Though the Peshawar High Court (PHC) has announced judicial year 2018-19 as the ‘Performance Year’ the task ahead for the district judiciary is tough as 180,383 cases are pending for disposal in the district courts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Of all the cases, 108,162 are civil and 72,221 are criminal.

As per the statistics of the cases available with The News, pendency of cases at district courts in Peshawar is the highest, with 27,910 cases including 15,164 civil and 12,746 criminal.

The Mardan district courts are second with 17,860 pending cases, including 9,758 civil and 8,102 criminal. Abbottabad district courts remained third with 13,459 pending cases, including 8,772 civil and 4,687 criminal.

As per the statistics, 10,495 cases are pending in Nowshera district courts, including 6,734 civil and 3,761 criminal. A total of 7,967 cases are pending in Charsadda district courts including 3,436 civil and 4,531 criminal. In Swabi, 9,950 cases are pending including 5,924 civil and 4,026 criminal while 3,049 cases including 1,950 civil and 1,093 criminal are pending in Malakand courts.

A total of 9,635 cases including 6,972 civil and 2,663 criminal are pending in Swat district courts and 1,171 cases including 917 civil and 254 criminal are pending in Shangla.

A total of 3,969 cases comprising 2,870 civil and 1,099 criminal are pending in Lower Dir district courts while 3,880 cases (1,648 civil and 2,232 criminal) are pending in Upper Dir. In the Buner district courts, 3,103 cases (2,577 civil and 526 criminal) are pending while 2,563 cases (1,857 civil cases and 706 criminal) are pending in Chitral. The figure of pending cases in Dera Ismail Khan district courts is higher at 10,769 (7,320 civil and 3,449 criminal cases). In Tank, 3,688 cases (1,757 civil and 1,931 criminal) are pending while 7,771 cases (3,895 civil and 3,876 criminal) are pending in Bannu.

A total of 4,028 cases (2557 civil and 1471 criminal) are pending in Lakki Marwat, 8,693 cases (4,897 civil and 3,796 criminal) in Kohat and 1,185 (518 civil and 667 criminal) are pending in Hangu. The pending cases total 7,097 (3,705 civil and 3392 criminal) in Karak, 9,508 (6,600 civil and 2,908 criminal) in Haripur, 9,434 (6,236 civil and 3,198 criminal) in Mansehra, 1,640 (1,132 civil and 508 criminal) in Battagram, 495 (216 civil and 234 criminal) in Kohistan and 1,064 (699 civil and 365 criminal) in Torghar district courts.The PHC has declared the judicial year 2018 as ‘Performance Year’ for the district judiciary.

In a recent statement, PHC Registrar Khwaja Wajihuddin said that the judicial year would start from September 2018.

In the judicial performance year, he said that every judge would decide at least 75 cases a month. He said the performance would be considered unsatisfactory if a judge did not meet the target.

The registrar said that a comprehensive policy was being chalked out for the district judiciary to enhance disposal rate of cases. He explained that presently 416 courts were functional in the province.

The PHC was working on digitisation of records and office management procedure to make it more systematic, he added.

Khwaja Wajihuddin maintained that to achieve quantifiable output of a judicial officer, Unit Policy was re-modified after being approved by the chief justice of PHC.

He said that a notification was issued to the district judiciary for consideration on Unit Policy implementation by replacing the Disposal Performance Evaluation Policy (DPEP) by September 2018.

The policy, he said, is in the initial phase and would be piloted in all districts from September to December 2018 and its output would be assessed. “This will help policymakers for needful modification. However, this will be implemented on a regular basis from January 2019,” he added.

The registrar said that a letter had been sent to judicial officers to report to the chief justice any person or official trying to seek favours by using influence. He stated that under the new policy, the judicial officers would be transferred from districts having less number of cases to the ones where the backlog of work is high.