PESHAWAR, April 15: The federal government has agreed to appoint four additional judges in the Peshawar High Court over and above its sanctioned strength, according to Ziaur Rehman Khan, president of the Peshawar High Court Bar Association (PHCBA).

He said that the association had put forward the demand of enhancing the number of judges during the visit of former prime minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain last year.

Mr Khan stated that their demand was accepted and now the process was in progress for raised the number of judges here. At present, the sanctioned number of judges in the high court is 15.

Briefing the reporters here on Friday, he said that the PHCBA’s cabinet would announce the polling date and the name of the election commissioner on April 26 for the annual elections of the association.

Accompanied by the general secretary, Wali Khan Afridi and vice-president, Zar Muhammad Afridi, the president of the association stated that the forthcoming cabinet would be for a term of seven months instead of one year so as to fulfil a constitutional requirement which made it binding on the association to hold annual polls before Jan 31 of every year.

He said that the general body of the association on Thursday discussed the proposal either to extend the tenure of the present cabinet or to reduce the term of next cabinet so as to meet the constitutional requirement and finally the second option was preferred.

Highlighting the performance of his cabinet, he informed that when they had taken charge they were handed over Rs 400,000 by the previous cabinet and now they were leaving behind Rs 2.2 million in the account.

During the last one year, he said they first tried to establish cordial relations between the bar and the bench and for that purpose the then high court’s Chief Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan was invited to the installation ceremony of the cabinet. “In accordance with our demands various steps were taken by the chief justice including installation of fans for litigants, construction of waiting room and wash rooms for female litigants and provision of legal digests of about twenty years to the bar,” he added.

During his visit to the high court on the association’s invitation, Mr Khan said, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain had donated Rs three million to the bar and Rs 500,000 were donated for the employees of the bar and the high court.

He said that the Peshawar City District had also allocated a sum of Rs 500,000 for construction of shades in the court’s premises for car parking and lawyers.