KARACHI, Oct 7: The two-day workshop on strengthening institutional capacity for judicial and legal reforms, which concluded here on Sunday, was informed of the prevailing practice of not producing accused in court for judicial remand in many cases and keeping them confined in jail as under-trial prisoners.

The workshop was part of the project of the courts of Pakistan supported by the Asian Development Bank, with technical assistance from the Asia Foundation.

Justice (retd) Shafiur Rahman said that he was informed by a pilot court judge in Karachi that out of four cases reported, one under-trial prisoner was kept in jail for over three-and-a-half years, two others for over one-and-a-half years and another for ten months.

The court had to lodge complaints against the investigating officers for wrongful detention. It is the jail authorities which reported to the court that there were under trials being kept in jail for long periods without remand order from the court. The judicial officers themselves detected some cases on inspection of the jail.

The law on the subject is very clear and so are the instructions of the High Court, he said and referred to a circular of the Lahore High Court (No 5575 MIT/HC dated May 10, 1975) addressed to all district magistrates, now applicable to all judicial magistrates.

The provisions of law mentioned in the above-cited circular and instructions of the High Court demand and afford an opportunity to the JMs to insist on receiving within twenty-four hours, a copy of every FIR registered in their jurisdiction and to take full charge of the supervision of investigation after 17 days of registration of the case.

Slowly and steadily the JMs have to discipline the investigating agencies and train them in expeditious and proper completion of investigation and early submission of Challans to ensure early trial of the accused.

On the concluding day, the discussion focused on managing new cases and the participants spelt out their experiences and suggestions for reducing backlog and time lag in the disposal of various cases, keeping in view their own resources and limitations.

It emerged from the discussion that in Karachi, problems were being faced in the process because many people were living abroad.

In order to cut down on time in the disposal of cases and frivolous litigation, a participant suggested amending the law for making provision for pre-trial conferences.

The emphasis was that expeditious disposal should not be at the cost of justice. It was also noted that law was not being made with the speed with which reforms were being introduced, due to which there were some problems.

From the closed-case survey and the statistical data collected, certain disturbing facts appeared. It was noted that the date of institution is not correctly recorded/indicated. Sometimes, it is taken to be the date on which the case is received on transfer in court, the date on which the case has been remanded and sometimes the date on which Challan has been filed. Such a varied practice makes the entire data collected with regard to old cases unreliable.

It was pointed out that instructions of the HCs unequivocally require that the date of institution should be the date when the case was in fact originally instituted and not any other date.

It also transpired that basic registers with proper headings required to be maintained are not being maintained and, if at all maintained, the entries are not promptly made therein to reflect the correct up-to-date position of pending cases.

Justice Shafiur Rahman emphasized that now that pilot court judges have had the experience of computerization, extensively used as a tool abroad, they should examine how these entries can be made to serve as the foundation for computerization of all relevant data with regard to the cases.

To begin with, he said, at the level of the HCs, subsequently, at the level of district courts and finally at the level of the court of each judge. It may take its time, depending upon funds and capacity, but a beginning has to be made by the pilot court judges in this respect.

It was also noted that quarterly inspections are not being fully utilized to take stock of and for an in-depth review of the functioning of the court as a whole, including the maintenance of basic registers and the statistical record of the court.

Some of the salutary requirements prescribed by HCs, such as maintaining a list of oldest cases pending in the court, are not being observed.

It was emphasized that all exercises of purging dead wood, expediting more deserving cases and categorizing cases with a view to their consolidated disposal has to be a continuous on-going exercise to be undertaken by the judge by himself.

This is an important duty and must be taken very seriously. A category of cases which amounts to either abuse of the process of the court or is instituted only to avail benefit of the interim order and its prolong continuation is getting larger. Such cases have to be identified at an early stage and taken care of by appropriate judicial attention.

The need for good relationship with the Bar was also emphasized to achieve the objectives of such reforms.

Justice Faqir Mohammad Khokhar, Secretary Law, Justice and Human Rights, distributed the certificates. Justice S.A. Sarwana of the Sindh High Court also attended.