Bullied

EVER since the restoration of the Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary, incidents of lawyers’ scuffle with the staff of other departments have increased. There was a scene with the staff of the Revenue department Mianwali and then a similar incident at Faisalabad, soon it was followed by the scene with the Police at Sargodha when a cop insulted a senior lawyer and then the incident at Lahore where a judge Family Court Lahore faced denigration. The incident at Lahore where an ASI was beaten up by the black coats is the latest one of the series of such incidents.

There are always two sides to a picture and the same is true of situations where you have to strike a balance between who is right and who is wrong. The analysis of the sudden change in lawyers’ behavior toward officials of other departments, prima facie, brings three possible explanations. One, that as upholders of justice they want to leave no stone unturned in order to eradicate corruption and unfair practices. Two, that having earned public’s sympathy as a consequence of CJ’s restoration they have, perhaps, gone out of their mind and hence the improper behavior. The third possibility is a situation that affirms both the above situations.

No prudent mind would advocate lawyers’ behavior toward the Revenue staff or the police official, more so when its footage was telecast by several TV channels. Corruption of Revenue department and atrocities of police find no equal in our country, I highly approve of any action that should be taken against lawyers if they are found guilty in these incidents and would even go on to say that their license to appear as a pleader in the court of law should be canceled. However, the inquiry should be conducted in a clean way without any prejudice to any side with an opportunity given to both sides to prove their innocence because reliance cannot be placed at the footage of our electronic media which is best at giving its own meanings to a situation while the reality is otherwise.

The Judicial Policy

“JUSTICE delayed is justice denied”, the maxim, is the driving force behind the Judicial Policy introduced by the Chief Justice about a week ago. The Judicial Policy aims at quick disposal of cases and thus providing relief to the litigants. But as the situation is, unfortunately the Judicial Policy might well be the reason for an immense increase in litigation, both civil and criminal.
Criminal and Civil litigation, in most cases, is interconnected, civil disputes lead to criminal disputes and vice-versa. The Judicial Policy provides for a period of only five days of notice in Bail before arrest cases. The period between filing of Bail application and notice to Complainant and Police to appears aims at providing the accused enough time to join the investigation with the Police and clarify his position, a notice of five days means that the accused would be left with very little time to prove his innocence to the Police where he has been involved in the case falsely. Also, the Judicial Policy provides for completion of trial within one year after its commencement, which too is not enough.
Talking about the civil litigation, most of the civil litigation involving disputes regarding property involves stay matters. The Judicial Policy provides only fifteen days for the decision of Stay matter after the institution of a civil suit. This small period of fifteen days is rather ridiculous, because generally at least fifteen days are considered a reasonable time for affecting the service of Notice to the second party. Now when the service would have to be affected in a hurried manner and stay decided in such a short period, several complications would arise. The Judicial Policy further requires a judge to report to the High Court his inability to decide the stay matter within the specified time, if it so happens, the repercussion of which would be that every judge would aim at deciding the stay matter any way rather than going for explanation to the High Court, which would result in miscarriage of justice. Moreover, the decision of civil judge on stay matter would result in appeal against the order, the result_ increase in litigation. Mostly, the reasons behind the Hurt and Murder cases involve property disputes. When the litigants would not find justice from the court, chances are bright that criminal matters would grow large in number.
Our Civil and Criminal procedure provides for a completion of trial after recording of complete evidence and arguments from both sides. Recording of evidence, particularly in civil cases, requires a considerable time but when the things would be done in hurry, apprehension of miscarriage of justice would always be there. Our courts are flooded with files involving frivolous litigation aimed at vexing the opponent party. I believe that the situation would be a lot better if we had Law of Torts as regular law in our country. Whereas, the Judicial Policy has been formulated with high ideals of facilitating the litigants, I see it as a prelude to a new beginning which will further add to the miseries of hapless litigants. It would rather be very proper that the Chief justice had taken steps to eradicate the evil of frivolous litigation in the first place and then move ahead to devise methods to ensure quick disposal of cases rather than fixing a time period for it.

Fuel Prices

IT is amazing how our government responds to certain situations. Going back a few months when the issue of restoration of Chief Justice was still in dispute, the government was discarding all possibilities of restoration of Chief Justice. Ironically, however, the government officials changed their statements after CJ’s reinstatement saying that government itself was considering to restore the deposed judges. A similar incident can be witnessed in the recent past as well.
Ever since his restoration, Chief Justice has taken steps to ring relief to the common lot, his appointing Justice Bhagwan Das as commission to prepare a report on petrol prices was in line with such steps. When the commission submitted its report and recommended a considerable cut in fuel prices, concerned government officials came forward with the statement that government itself was considering a cut in fuel prices by the end of the month. The sad and rather shameful aspect, however, is that the fuel prices have not been decreased to the recommended extent but only by Rs.1.44. What is even more shameful and requires action from the Chief Justice is the attitude adopted by the petrol pump owners on occasions when fuel prices are likely to reduce. They create fake shortage of fuel and charge even higher prices per liter and their atrocities always go unchecked. Such opportunists should be dealt with the iron hand and brought to justice.

Back in the Saddle

CHIEF Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary showing his concern over the huge pendency of cases has directed the judiciary for their quick disposal, in which connection the High Courts are also conducting a meeting with the District and Sessions judges in the next week. It is said that justice delayed is justice denied, so the justice should be provided without any delay. In the first place, our problem is not the pendency of cases but just decision of the case. It is usual with the High Courts to issue directions time by time regarding particular cases for their early disposal, but myself a lawyer I have seen how parties have to suffer on account of such directions which mostly result in miscarriage of justice. It so happens that once a direction case comes before the court, the court naturally gives more attention to its decision rather than going into factual and legal aspects of the case, which obviously results in the miscarriage of justice. Secondly, if the judge is a corrupt one, interested party can get a decision in its favor easily by greasing the judge’s palms. What is most required at this stage is an eradication of the evil of corruption from judiciary.

In order to keep check and control over the corruption, the High Courts can establish a sort of committee comprising honest officials. This has been done in the past and it bore fruits too. Corrupt practice can also be abolished by a regular shuffling of pending files among the courts so that a particular file may not remain in just one court. Then the High Courts can increase the number of civil judges and judicial magistrates at District and Tehsil level in order to cope with the pendency of suits, and also the High Courts can establish new benches to decide the pending cases at the appellate stage. Whereas new benches would reduce the number of pending cases, they will be also helpful to the common lot who has to travel from remote areas to pursue their case at the appellate stage. With the Chief Justice back in the saddle, a lot of improvement is expected.