ISLAMABAD, Dec 10: Caretaker Minister for Law Syed Afzal Haider on Monday said the proposed Islamabad High Court would commence functioning with principal seat in the federal capital from early next year as all legal instruments necessary for establishing the court would be completed by mid of this month.

“The high court for the Islamabad Capital Territory will start working from January 1, 2008 as preparations are under way to induct judges and ancillary staff to make it functional,” the minister said, adding that all the legal documents would soon be submitted before President Pervez Musharraf for necessary action.

The minister was talking to reporters at the Supreme Court where he had gone to attend the oath-taking ceremony of the newly-elevated judges of the apex court - Justice Mian Hamid Farooq, Justice Syed Sakhi Hussain Bokhari and Justice Syed Zawwar Hussain Jaffery. With the elevation of three more judges, the total strength of judges in the Supreme Court has reached 14.

“It seems the caretaker government is trying to revive a similar abortive attempt by the Shaukat Aziz government to establish the same when the legal fraternity severely opposed the move by calling it an attempt to establish a parallel high court,” a legal expert observed.

Even the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan in its meeting of February 2005, the expert recalled, had expressed some reservations, like the direct appeals routed through the federal high court would further burden the Supreme Court already facing with the problem of huge backlog.

Meanwhile, the law minister brushed aside the impression that with the creation of the federal high court all challenges to actions of the federal government could be made only before this court, explaining any complainant could approach any high court in the country for the resolution of such disputes.

Judges would be inducted from the four provinces, he said, adding that the Islamabad High Court would have the same authority as exercised by the four provincial high courts with only difference that it would be exclusively meant for the people residing in the federal territory.