January 19, 2002	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 4, 1422

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 18: The Supreme Court has formed a committee headed by the attorney general for suggesting ways and means to check delay by the government departments in filing appeals in cases involving valuable properties.

The apex court bench, comprising Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Hamid Mirza and Justice Tanvir Ahmad Khan, passed the order in a case in which Railways Authorities delayed filing of appeal.

The order was passed on the petition of Pakistan Railways against Sharif Javed Warsi which was time barred.

“It is not the only case where we have noticed slackness on the part of officers, but in a number of cases where valuable government properties are involved, the cases are filed with delay for one or the other reason”, the bench observed.

The court held that such cases were decided on pure technicalities and opponents, who were always interested to get favourable decisions, succeeded on technical points irrespective of the fact whether they were entitled to the relief or not.

The committee will comprise law secretaries, solicitors, advocate generals of all the provinces, and any other representative of the government department or autonomous body including Railways and Wapda.

The committee will submit its recommendations in a meeting on Feb 2, in attorney general’s office on Feb 2.

The apex court will examine the proposals in the presence of the attorney general and advocate generals of all the provinces.

Railways’ officials contended that they had received the copy of the judgment, which took time, and caused delay in filing the petition.

Initially copies of the judgment were received by the higher authorities and normally it took time to reach at the table of officers concerned responsible for filing cases.