- Attorney general seeks time till Jan next year to prepare SOPs for govt’s counsels, panel lawyers, legal advisers
- Law secretary tells PAC non-follow up of cases, lack of legal knowledge, inadequate briefings causing delays
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), while being briefed on the issue of weak follow-up on cases of the various ministries, divisions and departments on Tuesday, asked officials of the Law and Justice Division about the total number of cases pending with the courts and the government money these cases involved.
In his reply, the auditor-general of Pakistan told PAC members that according to their audit reports from the year 2002-03 and onwards, a total of 502 court cases of different departments involving an amount of Rs 385 billion were presently pending before the courts.
“This is only the tip of the iceberg, as we do audit on a sampling basis. This is 10 per cent of the cases; the total number of cases may be more which the respective principal accounting officer may explain,” he informed the accounts committee.
In his presentation to the committee on the policy guidelines for appointments of legal advisers and panel lawyers, Law and Justice Secretary Karamat Hussain Niazi shed light on the qualification and experience required for legal advisers and panel lawyers. He also informed the PAC members about engagement of private lawyers in high profile cases.
“Every year in January all departments/organisations/corporations are required to inform about the strength of legal advisors/panel lawyers, their performance and also their future requirements,” he told the committee.
The law and justice secretary also explained to the committee the reasons behind the delay and main causes of adverse orders against government entities.
Elaborating further, he said that as a general practice, different courts served notices/summons without a copy of the petition(s) so government departments failed to take action on such notices and summons as they had no knowledge about the facts of the case(s).
Frequent transfers and postings of officers, a lack of legal background of staff and officers and insufficient briefing of law officers by departments concerned were other factors behind the delays, he added.
According to the law and justice secretary, non-follow up of cases, shortage of staff and officers in government departments, non-coordination between law officers and departments and lack of legal knowledge were the primary causes behind adverse orders issued in such cases.
Asked about remedial measures the government had been taking to address this issue, Attorney General Ashtar Ausaf said that the first step in order to analyse the breadth and width of the issue verifiable data was needed.
“There have always been allegations of favouritism in appointments of legal advisers and in order to make genuine contribution, we need to move in the right direction,” he added.
During the meeting, the PAC chief asked the law and justice secretary that how they expected a lawyer being paid Rs 20,000 to hold his ground when other parties were hiring notable lawyers. Niazi said that his office was trying to sort it out with the help of the attorney general’s office.
Attorney General Ashtar Ausaf said that his office was working on forming a panel to look into cases and give recommendations. “We need to have a checklist that will document the whole process of a case, including details about its filing, government counsel, the amount involved and all such things,” he added.
Ausaf also ensured the committee that before January 30, next year his office would form the SOPs regulating government cases in the courts with intake from the Ministry of Law and Justice and Attorney General’s office alike.
