LAHORE, March 25: Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on Saturday said that the performance of anti-terrorism courts had been far from satisfactory because of inordinate delay in deciding cases.

Presiding over the meeting of a recently-constituted committee of judges to supervise and monitor the functioning of the courts, he said the courts were invariably deciding cases involving heinous offences beyond the time-frame stipulated by the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997.

“The inordinate delay is against the spirit of the law,” said Justice Chaudhry.

The committee meeting was attended by Justice Rana Bhagwandas, Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice Khalilur Rehman Khan Ramday of the Supreme Court, Justice Mian Mohammad Najamuz Zaman of the Lahore High Court, Justice Rehmat Hussain Jafri of the Sindh High Court, Justice Ijazul Hasan Khan of the Peshawar High Court, Justice Mohammad Nadir Khan of the Balochistan High Court and Dr Faqir Hussain, Supreme Court registrar.

It decided to take concrete steps to ensure that anti-terrorism courts adhered to the time frame determined by the law while deciding cases.

It decided that member judges would closely watch the functioning of the courts and the performance of police and other law enforcing agencies and prosecution agencies to ensure that cases were properly investigated, charge sheets submitted at the courts in time and witnesses examined according to a time schedule.

The meeting also decided that the provincial governments should be asked to fill in the vacancies of judges of special courts.

According to another decision, judges on the committee would keep a close liaison with the ATC judges, holding meetings with them regularly, and establish contact with the inspectors-general of police, home secretaries, law secretaries and other departments to remove bottlenecks in the working of the courts.

The meeting decided that the IGPs would provide details of terrorism cases in the lists that are to be submitted to the judge of the high courts. The chief justices of provinces would be required to make available such lists to the special courts.

The committee directed the provincial governments to ensure provision of adequate funds for engaging lawyers and take steps for the security of ATC judges, advocates and witnesses.

The provincial agencies concerned were directed to submit reports to the Supreme Court registrar for consideration in the committee meeting.

The committee will meet again within a month to take stock of the disposal of cases.