July 29, 2006	Saturday	Rajab 2, 1427

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LAHORE, July 28: Ghulam Muhammad, 40, a resident of Shahdara, has visited the district courts for more than a week to get power of attorney transferred in the name of one of his family members for selling his land in Dera Ghazi Khan. After having gone through a lengthy and cumbersome procedure and spending around Rs3,000, he has learnt that he cannot get the genuine power of attorney.

His ordeal starts from a plot his family sold out at his native village in DG Khan. He has some portion of the plot registered in his name. A court in DG Khan required his appearance for verification but he could not get leave from the private company he works with in Lahore.

His family informed the court who gave two options: either the court appoints a local commission comprising a government official to visit Ghulam Muhammad to get the verification or he sends a power of attorney in the name of any of his family members to appear before court on his behalf.

The first option would cost him Rs15,000 which includes travel and accommodation expense of the government official and the second option required him to get prepared the power of attorney on a stamp paper of Rs1,000.

“I opted for the second, less expensive option,” he says, adding that he approached a lawyer who without verifying whether any court in Lahore has an authority to register the attorney charged him Rs1,000. The lawyer sent a boy with Ghulam Muhammad to purchase the Rs1,000 stamp paper. After visiting three shops, he learnt that the stamp papers were short in the market.

The boy took him to someone who arranged the papers for him by charging extra Rs200. They got back to the lawyer who again sent them to another person for drafting the text of the power of attorney.

The stamp paper composer told them that he would not be able to do the task for two days. Another composer was approached, who made them wait for three hours before refusing. Yet another composer charged them Rs300 just for inserting the facts of the power of attorney in a text he already had saved in his computer. The text was got printed on the stamp paper.

Ghulam Muhammad got back to his lawyer who took him to the court of a sub-registrar just to learn that the court did not have the authority to register the power of attorney. The power of attorney would be registered in DG Khan only. There he had an argument with the lawyer who told him that it was not his job to register the power of attorney. His job was just to guide him.

“What can I do if the law regarding the registration has changed?” the lawyer said.

The victim said he then made a last ditch effort by contacting an agent in the district courts. However, he added, he managed to get rid of the agent only after paying him Rs500 as advance. “The agent assured me that the matter would cost me only Rs2,000 and that the power of attorney he would get registered in court would be a fake one.

“He had also assured me that no one would be able to differentiate between the fake and the original one. But I could not accept it.”

Stories involving complex court procedures like this are not hard to find these days, Lahore Bar Association President Imran Masood says. He admits that any visitor to the subordinate courts has to suffer a great deal of inconvenience.

“The courts are overburdened and there is no proper way to discipline the working until their number is increased,” he says.

Right now, he says, at least 200 to 250 cases on an average are instituted daily to the courts of civil-cum-judicial judges, while the number for the sessions court is 150 to 200 a day.

To cut the story short, he says, “you just go to get the copy of some case decided a couple of months ago from a court and you will realise how difficult it is.”