KARACHI, Jan 15: The Supreme Court of Pakistan will set up additional benches for Karachi and Lahore for disposing of pending petitions, Akram Zuberi, senior vice-president and Sahibzada Anwar Hamid, secretary, Supreme Court Bar Association, told newsmen here on Tuesday.

More than 1,000 constitutional petitions are pending in Supreme Court Karachi Registry and 5,000 in Lahore, they said.

The additional benches would hear pending petitions on a day- to-day basis, they said, and hoped that the benches would start work from February and March respectively.

They criticized appointment of judges in the Supreme Court without consulting the Bar and contended that the appointment of four judges in the apex court had also affected seniority among the judges of the High Courts.

Akram Zuberi said the Bar Association was convening a meeting of their seniors in Islamabad on January 19 to discuss the problems and to determine a future line of action.

—PPI