ISLAMABAD, Nov 10: The apex court’s National Judicial (Policymaking) Committee met here on Saturday with the new Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, in the chair and sought cooperation of lawyers with courts, and asked judges to concentrate on disposal of cases.

Justice Chaudhry Iftikhar Hussain, Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court, Justice Aman Ullah Khan, Chief Justice of the Balochistan, Justice Talaat Qayyum Qureshi, Chief Justice of the Peshawar High Court and Justice Mohammad Afzal Soomro, Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court attended the meeting held at the conference room of the Supreme Court building in Islamabad.

Sources told Dawn that former Supreme Court registrar and Secretary Law and Justice Commission Dr Faqir Hussain, who had criticised the government for the treatment meted out to judges refusing to take a fresh oath after the proclamation of emergency, did not attend the meeting.

The committee noted that although many new districts had been created in the recent past but adequate provisions for construction of jails and transport were not made. In some cities, jails had been constructed far away from court premises. Consequently, police often did not produce UTPs at the proper time.

The committee decided to establish a video conferencing system in all courts at district and tehsil levels so that an accused is not required to be produced before the court and the concerned judicial officer may interact with the accused as well as police officials in the judicial lock ups and pass orders on applications for remand.