KARACHI, April 24: Chief Justice of Sindh High Court Justice Mushir Alam announced on Tuesday constitution of the special green courts at district courts level and a special bench at the SHC to deal with the litigation on environment related matters.

He was addressing a gathering of judicial officers including senior civil judges, in a vehicles distribution ceremony on the SHC premises.

“A special green bench has been constituted in the SHC to deal with the environment related issues, while the district and sessions judges will appoint additional district and sessions judges and senior civil judges for hearing the environment related cases.

He said that the judges of high moral character, value and high learning were needed for a firm and independent judiciary.

The CJ said that as many as 107,650 cases were pending disposal in the district judiciary across the province, while there was an acute shortage of judicial officers in the lower courts with 92 posts of civil judges and additional district and sessions judges were lying vacant.

He said that there was also a shortage of judges in the SHC as only 14 judges were there against the sanctioned strength of 40.

He said that as many as 121,359 cases were pending disposal at the SHC which meant each judge had a caseload of 8,668.5.