Adjournments
ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa has called for an end to the practice of seeking adjournments. He said that this tendency has increased the number of pending cases in the apex court.
During a hearing of a case on Monday, CJP Isa declared, “Let’s eradicate the notion that the court will grant adjournments from now on.”
CJP Isa asserted that the practice of granting adjournments in cases should be considered a thing of the past.
He emphasized that there is a substantial backlog of cases in the Supreme Court. Justice Isa said that a single hearing would suffice to issue a notice to the parties. He asserted that a decision would be made on the arguments in the subsequent hearing.
CJP Isa conveyed a clear message that adjournments in cases would no longer be entertained.
The top judge pointed out that while other courts allow time for the submission of case-related documents, the Supreme Court is the final court of resort where records for all cases are submitted in advance.
Justice Isa pledged to make all-out efforts to dispose of pending cases at the earliest during his first case hearing as the country’s top judge. He assumed the role of Chief Justice of Pakistan on September 17, 2023.
Former CJP Justice Umar Ata Bandial had attributed the increase in case backlog in the country’s top court to constitutional cases.
The former CJP Bandial had mentioned that the apex court had disposed of approximately 23,000 cases in 2022. He pointed out that in 2021, the court disposes of 18,000 cases.
During the period from February 2, 2022, to February 25, 2023, the Supreme Court decided 24,303 cases.
However, the court registered 22,018 new cases during the same period.
Therefore, the apex court reduced backlog of cases by 2,285 cases _ from 54,735 to 52,450 during the mentioned period.
