ISLAMABAD, June 16: The Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui, issued an order on Wednesday directing all the judges of the Supreme Court to continue hearing cases at least for six weeks during the three-month summer vacation.
The chief justice has also constituted benches in all the provincial registries in this regard. Some of the SC judges however have volunteered to work even during the entire vacations to reduce the backlog.
The decision to this effect was taken to deal with the heavy pendency of cases in the apex court, which according to the SC records is 23,081 till date. The annual summer vacation of the Supreme Court has commenced from June 14, 2004 and would end on Sept 5, 2004.
The pendency chart showed that from Jan 1, 2004 to June 12, 2004, the SC disposed of 4,726 petitions and appeals with a total strength of 12 judges whereas it should have been 17. On Jan 1, there were 20,031 pending cases in the court while 7,776 fresh cases were filed up to June 12.
Presently there are 23,081 cases pending in the Supreme Court of which 10,647 are awaiting disposal at the principal seat in Islamabad, 9,511 in the Lahore Registry, 1,344 in the Karachi Registry, 1,367 at the Registry in Peshawar and 212 in the Quetta Registry.
The cause list of cases issued by the SC's secretariat suggested that one bench each would sit in Islamabad and Quetta and two in Lahore from June 14 to 18. Similarly from June 21 to 25, one bench each would sit in Islamabad, Karachi, Quetta but two in Lahore.
However, from the week commencing from June 28 to July 2, one bench each will sit in Islamabad and Karachi and two in Lahore. From July 5 to 9, three benches will sit to hear cases in Lahore, while one each in Islamabad and Karachi.
Likewise from July 12 to 16, only one bench will sit in the principal seat while three in Lahore, whereas two benches will sit in Lahore and one each in Islamabad, Peshawar and Karachi during the week commencing from July 19 to 23. However, one bench each will be constituted in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi during July 26 to 30.
However, from August 9 to 13, the situation will change as five benches will be constituted to hear cases in Islamabad only, but from August 16 to 20, one bench will sit each in Islamabad and Quetta. From August 23 to Sept 3, only one bench in Lahore will hear cases to reduce the existing pendency in the apex court.
