- Lawyers observed full-day strike against a total failure of new IT system, mismanagement of cases
The new case management system at the Lahore High Court and the district judiciary of Punjab has failed to live up to the hype it had created at its inauguration. Following which, the Lahore High Court Bar Association went all out against it and demanded an immediate remedy.
Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) had observed full day strike last Friday against a total failure of the new IT system, dismissal of cases due to mismanagement, non-issuance of regular and supplementary cause lists and complete failure of the SMS system.
The bar association also demanded that the institution of urgent cases till 11:00 am in the morning is not at all acceptable and demanded the old CC system to be restored.
Advocates were requested not to appear before the Lahore High Court even in urgent cases. The press release was duly signed by Amir Saeed Raan, secretary of the High Court Bar Association, Lahore.
It is pertinent to mention here that the old system resulted in having a 142,000 pending cases and an annual loss of approximately 6 billion rupees.
Furthermore, the new IT system was launched less than 4 weeks ago. Also, the system of filing cases in High Courts was last updated in 1950.
“The new system was not making litigation easy for the parties. There were difficulties and hindrances; however, a committee headed by Justice Ali Akbar Qureshi is looking into the drawbacks in the issuance of cause lists and other issues,” Lahore High Court Bar Association President Chaudhary Zulfiqar Ali said while talking to Pakistan Today.
Our strike last week greatly helped us; now the high court staff can be found sitting late in their offices till the cause list is not provided,” he said, adding that in future the system will run more smoothly.
Advocate High Court Raja Mudassir, who practices at Lahore High Court, however, was of the opinion that the replacing the old system with the new software was neither completely understood nor properly tested before its implementation. “Now they have labelled all the cases with the ID card numbers. The old cases are coming with their CC numbers, while new cases come under ID cards. The urgent cause list too was beyond comprehension. They bought the new system for millions of rupees, but the system so far has been a flop,” he said.
Raja was of the opinion that after the strike things have surely improved a little. “We have started to get messages about our case hearings and hopefully things will be in full swing soon,” he said.
It is pertinent to mention here that in last year from June to December, the LHC decided 57,784 cases while district judiciary disposed of 808,761 cases.
“The implementation will take time. I say that because I have studied this system. We should assist the judiciary not boycott it. See, in a study done by the high court and district judiciary, the pendency of the case goes thus: cases pending in High Court: 142,000; pending in district courts of Punjab: 2.4 million. Also, 60 per cent of the cases delayed in Punjab are because of strikes and protests,” said Advocate High Court Afrasiab while talking to Pakistan Today.
