The Supreme Court on Monday decided on a new plan to tackle the massive backlog of cases. In recent weeks, the immense pileup of pending cases had prompted the government to consider a constitutional amendment to bifurcate the court into the Supreme Court and a Constitutional Court.
On Monday, the newly-inaugurated Chief Justice of Pakistan, Yahya Afridi, held the maiden session of his first full court meeting. The meeting was held in the Supreme Court of Pakistan in Islamabad. It was attended by all judges of the top court, including Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, who joined via video link since he is currently on pilgrimage abroad.
The meeting was convened to assess the performance of the Supreme Court in administrative matters, disposing of cases, focusing on measures to reduce case backlog and enhancing judicial efficiency.
The top court's Registrar provided an overview of the current caseload and outlined the steps taken towards the timely decision of cases. Presenting updated statistics, she indicated that some 59,191 cases are currently pending in the top court.
To address these cases, she said that they had introduced a newly devised one-month plan based on the Case Management Plan of 2023 - prepared by senior puisne judge Justice Mansoor Ali Shah. The plan includes setting clear standards and employing information technology to effectively manage all categories of cases.
Reviewing the case management plan, the judges discussed various strategies to achieve the plan's targets. As detailed in the monthly plan, it was suggested that criminal and civil cases be allocated to specialised two- and three-member benches to ensure their swift and speedy resolution.
Judges recommended further improving the system, underscoring their commitment to addressing case backlogs. Justice Shah offered additional suggestions to reduce the case backlog and improve procedural efficiency initially for a month and, followed by three-month and six-month plans.
Chief Justice Afridi thanked all the judges for their resolve to fully implement the case management plan, with a commitment to achieving the outlined targets.
Progress on the plan will be reviewed in the next session of the full court meeting scheduled for December 2, 2024.