January 31, 2002	Thursday	Ziqa’ad 16, 1422

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 30: The Supreme Court has directed all responsible government officials to check activities of “unscrupulous persons,” who cause huge damage to the national exchequer by not filing cases at a proper time.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry noted that the cases filed on behalf of government in different courts were rejected invariably because of they are filed after the expiry of the time limit set for such cases by the law.

Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry observed that government departments were not to be treated differently as per settled principal of law of limitation, but at least the court could inquire from the departments to explain the reasons for causing the delay.

“If the government loses a case pertaining to valuable properties worth millions of rupees the loss is caused to public exchequer just for the negligence of the subordinate officials of the department posted at lower stages to deal with such important cases.”

Except in genuine cases, the court noted, subordinate staff allowed time to run against the government with a view to accommodating the opponent litigants. The court observed that it was not difficult to overcome such menace provided high-ups of the departments who were ultimately responsible for good governance of their departments or involved by the courts directly by sending reports to them about the performance of their subordinates.

The court held that without going into the merits of the case, “we would issue notice to Chairman, Evacuee Trust Property Board, Islamabad, to look into the matter personally and conduct a through probe into it and fix responsibility. The chairman will appear on Feb 7, the next date of hearing, before the court.