PESHAWAR, Sept 24: A Peshawar High Court order to subordinate courts for disposal of the cases instituted before 2000 by Sept 30 has drawn the displeasure of local lawyers, who rejected it outright.

In an emergency meeting of the Peshawar District Bar Association’s general body with president Wakeel Zaman Khattak in the chair here on Monday, lawyers complained that the said policy was not about speedy provision of justice and rather it was meant for speedy disposal of cases, which had badly hampered their work.

They said in light of the National Judicial Policy adopted in 2009, the Supreme Court recently issued certain directives to the respective high courts.

According to them, in light of those instructions, the PHC sent orders to the district and sessions judges on Sept 17 asking them to convey to all judges of the subordinate courts to dispose of the cases of the oldest category until Sept 30 failing which show cause notices would be issued to them and action would be taken against them under the Efficiency and Disciplinary Rules.

The meeting decided that the president of the association would hold a meeting with Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and PHC Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan about the grievances of the lawyers on the matter.

The National Judicial (Policymaking) Committee chaired by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had adopted the judicial policy in 2009 and subsequently several meetings were held to make evaluation of the disposal of cases.

In the said policy, the committee said the ‘old’ cases instituted before Dec 31, 2008 should be decided within a year.

Later in 2011, directions were issued about putting cases into old, older and oldest categories.

Lawyers said PHC had ordered the subordinate judiciary to dispose of the ‘oldest’ cases instituted before 2000 should be decided until Sept 30.

Speakers, including Fida Gul, Mian Abdul Fayyaz and Ishtiaq Ibrahim, said the said order had been hanging like a sword of Damocles over judges conducting day-to-day hearings into these cases.

Mr Wakil Zaman said there was 1,473 cases of the oldest category in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and of them, 40 were related to Peshawar.

He said 34 of the oldest cases had been disposed of until now, while only six were left in Peshawar.

He added that lawyers would cooperate with judges in disposing of the remaining six cases, too.

Mr Zaman, however, said the said policy was unacceptable to lawyers as they were occupied by a single case for many days.

Other speakers said the oldest cases also included those pending in the high court for many years before being remanded back to the relevant subordinate courts.

They added that disposal of cases should not be expedited to such a level that justice could not be done to the parties concerned.