Daily Times

CJP Khosa claims govt cries shortage of funds whenever asked for more judges. Ever since Chief Justice of Pakistan, Asif Saeed Khosa, assumed the charge of the senior most judicial office, he has repeatedly talked about his drive against pending cases. As another attempt to wrap up the backlog in courts, he called attention towards the shortage of judges, during the proceedings of a civil case at the apex court.

CJ Khosa claimed that if judges are appointed to fill even 25 per cent of the vacant positions in the system, the backlog of pending cases in court could be wrapped up within a year or two.

“There are only 3,000 judges to cater to a population of 221 to 222 million people,” Justice Khosa remarked while adding that last year, the justice system had wrapped up as many as 3.1 million cases. While comparing the top court in Pakistan to the US, he maintained, “The Supreme Court wrapped up a total of 26,000 cases last year, while the US Supreme Court managed to only wrap up 80 to 90 cases.” At least 1.9 million cases are still pending in courts because of a shortage of judges, he asserted, yet the people in the system were trying to wrap up as many cases as they could.

Previously, the chief justice had also raised the same issue when he had pointed out that a single judge was responsible for a population of 62,000 in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while one judge was available for as many as 2.2 million people in the Lahore High Court. Also in Punjab, he had added, one judge had a caseload of more than 660 cases, which validated that the judiciary was doing its best to dispense justice despite such heavy caseload. The judiciary was said to be endeavouring to resolve delays in cases while making use of its existing limited resources. “And when we ask the government to increase the number of judges so that justice can be delivered promptly, they reply to us they are short of funds,” CJP Khosa had said at the time.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Law and Justice, on Friday, denied having any access to records of pending cases in high courts since January 2018.

Published in Daily Times, March 9^th 2019.