LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday asked the federal ministry of law and justice to fill vacancies of judges at the banking courts of Punjab.

Sources in the high court said that on the directions of Justice Muhammad Farrukh Irfan Khan, the administrative judge of the banking courts, a letter has been written by the LHC registrar to the federal law secretary in this regard.

The registrar nominated the district and sessions judges for all vacant banking courts, ie seven in Lahore, two in Multan and one each in Sahiwal and Faisalabad.

The sources said the registrar had made these nominations to the law ministry about eight months ago but no action had been taken despite several reminders.

In a recent meeting, Justice Khan had expressed concern about non-posting of judges in the banking courts due to which litigants, financial institutions and business community had been suffering a lot.

The judge had taken serious notice of absence of the representative of the ministry of law and directed the secretary law to attend the subsequent meetings without fail. He also directed the federal government to appoint a focal person (not below the rank of deputy secretary) to deal with the matters of the banking courts.

The meeting also asked the government to establish at least two more banking courts in Faisalabad and one in Sialkot immediately in order to minimize the backlog of cases. It had also resolved that the banking courts staff, working at same place for last 10 to 15 years, be rotated from one division to other by the federal government by devising a rotation policy.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2019