KARACHI, May 30: As improving the working conditions of and giving due rights to the workers are at the bottom of the government’s list of priorities, it seems that improving the condition of the court buildings where labour disputes are settled are also nowhere near the top of that list.

A visit to the Fifth Sindh Labour Court, located in Barrack No 6, Sindh Secretariat No 4-A, near the Sindh High Court, revealed that the ceiling of the courtroom, its next-door verandah, which is being used to keep the record of the cases pending in the court, is leaking at many places.

Sources told Dawn that sometime back the verandah was used as a chamber of a judge who sat and waited there till the next-door courtroom, where another labour judge also held court, was available for him to hear cases. Luckily that court has been shifted to another comparatively better place.

The sources said the Fifth Labour Court had the heaviest case load — trying nearly 600 cases — of all the other labour courts. The court now is headed by, after a recent promulgation of labour laws, a district and sessions judge. Earlier a junior judicial official held the post.

The sources said the presiding officer of the Fifth Labour Court, Ghulam Hussain Mallah, who is also a district and sessions judge, had written many times to the relevant department to carry out the required repairs. But so far some improvement has only been made in the judge’s chamber whereas the condition of the court and its verandah-turned-storeroom remains as pathetic as before.