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Tuesday March 19, 2024

KP district judiciary reduces caseload under Unit Policy

By Akhtar Amin
March 25, 2019

PESHAWAR: District judiciary of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has reduced the pendency of cases after implementation of the Unity Policy.

As per the data of the two quarterly report (September 2018 to February 2019) of the “Performance Year”, the total recorded pendency at the end of September 2018 was 2,04,958, which has been reduced to 1,99,365 cases during last six months.

Overall, 241,915 cases were instituted and 244,181 cases were disposed of since September 2018 till February 2019 in the district judiciary.

Likewise, the Peshawar High Court disposed of 17,860 cases against the total institution of 15,967 for the same time period. Overall, the pendency recorded at end of September 2018 was 37,952, which was reduced to 35,761 cases in two quarters of the performance year.

Khawaja Wajihuddin, registrar of the Peshawar High Court, said that in both the first and second quarters, the disposal rate of the cases increased. “If this ratio continues, the backlog of cases will be zero within the next four years,” he added.

“The statistics show that if every judge in the district judiciary improved his/her performance by 5 percent in the remaining six months of the performance year, we would be able to achieve the goal set at the performance year for clearance of the 25 percent of backlog,” the PHC registrar claimed.

For the first time, he said, the PHC had carried out security and accounts audit to remove the shortcomings and improve the security situation of the judiciary in the province.

He said that digitalisation and the Case Flow Management Information System (CFMIS) has been introduced in four districts of Mansehra, Abbottabad, Torghar and Swat to integrate these districts with PHC to capture real-time data and cases’ update information. He said that CFMIS system would be extended to seven more districts under the pilot project.

He said that video-conferencing technology had been initiated for consultation with district judiciary on key issues and for getting their feedback.

The registrar said that hectic efforts were being made to reduce the pendency by 25 to 30 percent by the end of August 2019, which would be a great achievement.

He said that concerted efforts and planning had been carried out by the secretariat of the district judiciary in line with the vision of PHC chief justice to clear backlog of cases.

“Our plan and methodology is showing positive results as backlog has been reduced below 200,000 cases,” he said.

He said Small Claims and Minor Offences Courts have been operationalised in all 27 districts of the province for early disposal of all those civil and criminal cases that fall within the category of Small Claim and Minor Offences (SCMO) with an aim to provide inexpensive and expeditious justice.

He hoped that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government would soon pass the draft of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Judicial Service Act, 2018 to separate the district judiciary from the executive, which has been sent to the government several months ago.