June 19, 2006	Monday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 22, 1427

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ABBOTTABAD, June 18: Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary has announced that ‘cabin courts’ will be constructed in earthquake-affected areas and work on the project will start shortly, especially in Balakot and Batagram.

The chief justice of Pakistan was visiting the earthquake-hit court buildings here on Saturday.

He said the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority had been tasked to remove the rubble of the destroyed buildings after which the reconstruction work would be initiated and added that the life expectancy of those (cabin court) buildings would be 30 years.

The chief justice said that Rs204 million had been approved for reconstruction of the Peshawar High Court’s Abbottabad circuit building, advocate-general’s offices and the High Court Bar.

Taking serious notice of the poor standard of the construction work of the high court building in 2000, he said reports of inquiries conducted previously would be studied again and strict action would be taken against those found guilty.

Later, addressing the annual dinner of the High Court Bar Association, Justice Iftikhar praised lawyers and members of judiciary who continued working despite collapse of the infrastructure in the Oct 8 disaster.

He said efforts were being made to provide speedy justice and added that backlog of cases in upper courts had almost finished.

He said four additional judges would be appointed in the Peshawar High Court and their strength would be increased to 19.

Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Tariq Pervez, in his speech, said that a proposal involving Rs505 million for reconstruction of courts had been submitted to the concerned quarters.