KARACHI: Over 51,000 cases are pending before the Supreme Court of Pakistan, it emerged on Sunday.

According to the latest fortnightly report of the apex court, 423 cases were decided from June 1 to June 15 whereas 628 new cases were filed during the same period and the total pending cases stood at 51,387.

On June 1, the pendency was at 51,182 and the principal seat of the apex court in Islamabad had decided 398 cases in two weeks; the Karachi registry disposed of 25 cases and no case was decided in three other registries at Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta during this period, the report said.

Similarly, the principal seat of the apex court had received the highest numbers of cases, i.e. 281, followed by 191 at Lahore registry, 106 cases at Karachi registry, 35 cases at Peshawar registry and 15 cases were filed at the apex court’s Quetta registry during June 1 to 15, it concluded.

‘Missing’ person case

The Supreme Court has directed the police to submit a progress report within three weeks regarding the whereabouts of a man reportedly went missing in 2016.

A three-judge SC bench headed by Justice Maqbool Baqar expressed resentment over SSP-Malir and other police officials for not fulfilling their responsibilities to provide protection to citizens.

The police and a provincial law officer argued that a joint investigation team had investigated the case and the alleged missing person had himself gone away after contracting another marriage. However, the bench observed that it was the responsibility of police to trace the current location of the man in question and directed them to come up with a progress report within three weeks.

Relatives of Niaz Ajan submitted that he went missing from Cattle Colony within the remit of the Sukhan police station and his whereabouts still remained unknown while the high court had disposed of their petition on the basis of a police report.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2021