The Lahore High Court Chief Justice, Sheikh Azmat Saeed, said that the best people will be inducted at all tiers of provincial judiciary and there will be no compromise on this as we have determined to deliver according to the high hopes pinned by the people who are true stakeholders of the judicial system.
The chief justice was talking to a 50-member delegation of Lahore Tax Bar Association (LTBA) including 20 former presidents as well as President and Secretary of Pakistan Tax Bar Association. Responding to demand of elevation of tax professionals to the bench, the CJ said that men of integrity and sound competency will be chosen for the slot in the interest of public at large.
On a call of deciding tax matters expeditiously, the CJ said that he didn’t follow the “do more” policy blindly. Rather a comprehensive strategy had been evolved and classification, identification and bundling of all tax related cases had been completed within a short span of three months. There were about five thousand such files which had been categorized as per identical questions of law and we intend to dispose dozens of cases having similar proposition of law with a single stroke. Legal technicalities will not be allowed to hinder the process of dispensation of justice. A bulk of such files will see the light of day before the summer vacation, the CJ maintained. The chief justice asked tax professionals to assist the tax benches more vigorously and with high preparedness as compared to the tribunals. With your valuable assistance, Punjab can lead other provinces and set precedents for other High Courts to follow. On a request for appointment of more court auctioneers amongst the tax practitioners, the CJ said refresher courses for this purpose will be designed. Not a single day goes without a training session at the Punjab Judicial Academy as it is jam packed with refresher courses for judicial officers being year 2012 capacity building of judges. Now the doors of the academy will be opened for the advocate community and the best trained lot will be offered court auctioning opportunities even handed.
The CJ underlined the need of constant and consistent liaison between bench and the bar and lawyers were required to advance more ideas being on the front line. The delegation assured full cooperation with the judiciary for deciding tax references. It also requested for organizing programmes and seminars about tax laws in Punjab Judicial Academy. Patron LTBA, Zia Haider Rizvi, President Ch Zahid Attique, Vice President Amir Shehzad, General Secretary Farhan Shehzad, Finance Secretary Naghmana Shehzadi and Joint Secretary LTBA Naeem Khan were also present on the occasion.
Our judges will be the best of the best: LHC CJ
