GUJRAT: The Lahore High Court chief justice has directed the district and sessions judges of at least 23 districts to decide pending cases of overseas Pakistanis within six months of the filing of the cases.

According to a direction issued on April 12 by the LHC inspection team member, the D&SJs of Lahore, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujrat, Khanewal, Jhelum, Khushab, Toba Tek Singh, Jhang, Mandi Bahauddin, Sargodha, Attock, Gujranwala, Sahiwal, Sialkot, Bahawalnagar, Chakwal, Rahim Yar Khan, Sheikhupura, Bahawalpur, Kasur and Vehari have been directed by the chief justice to decide the cases referred as pending by the Overseas Pakistanis Commission (OPC), Punjab.

The notification further said the chief justice had issued the directions in compliance with the national judicial policy.

The D&SJs have also been forwarded the list of the pending cases in their respective districts.

The OPC director general had submitted to the office of the LHC chief justice the list of as many as 162 cases pending with the lower courts in the aforementioned districts with a request for the expeditious disposal of these cases.

Generally, the OPC receives online complaints of the expatriate Pakistanis and then forward the same to the focal person of the respective district for necessary action and compliance. Most of the complaints relate to land revenue, properties and police.

However, the cases that would often stand pending within the courts, could not be handled by the OPC as well as the other respective departments until the issuance of the court verdict that is why the commission DG has requested the chief justice for speedy decisions, said a member of the OPC belonging to Gujrat district.

In Gujrat, the OPC committee is being headed by PML-N MPA Shabeer Kotla with District Monitoring Officer Waqar Khan as its focal person whereas the committee used to hold its meetings on a regular basis every month to review progress on the matters related to the overseas Pakistanis.

The Gujrat committee had also formally requested the respective D&SJs to depute a [separate] civil judge to hear and decide the cases.

It merits mentioning that an overwhelming majority of expatriate Pakistanis belong to Gujrat, Mandi Bahauddin, Jhelum, Chakwal, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, T.T Singh, Sahiwal and Rawalpindi districts.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2017