Full court reference held for outgoing LHC CJ

LAHORE: A full court reference was held in honour of Lahore High Court Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah on his elevation to the Supreme Court of Pakistan, here on Tuesday.

Chief Justice designate, Justice Muhammad Yawar Ali & other LHC Judges attended the Reference.

Speaking at the occasion, Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah said that after taking oath of his office, he focused on development and reforms in the institution besides maintaining its independence.

He said that during the era of former chief justice, the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) had made offer for the providing IT enterprise system to the LHC. "We accepted the offer and the work started", he added.

He said the Punjab government awarded Rs 380 million IT system installation contract to a private company, Logics, whereas some elements spread rumours that the contract was given to a member of the chief justice's family.

He said the LHC did not play any role and the PITB conducted the whole process from consultancy to installation.

He said that Rs 3 billion project for provision of IT Enterprise System in district judiciary was in its final stages of the approval.

"Whenever change takes place in any institution, it's always hard for mafia to tolerate it and he always resist against it ," he added.

He clarified that the World Bank did not play any role in the installation of the IT system.

However, first ADR centre was being constructed in Lahore with cooperation of the World Bank and it would soon be completed, he added.

He said that almost all staff of the court was given time scale promotion and up-gradation besides provision of facilities to judges of the district judiciary.

He said the process servers were given new motorcycles and phones and all these facilities were provided from the LHC sources, whereas no additional budget was demanded from the government on account of these facilities.

He said that British High Commission, Asian Development Bank, World Bank and others cooperated for different projects in the LHC and district judiciary and training courses were arranged for the judges.

Chief Justice designate, Justice Muhammad Yawar Ali congratulated the Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah for his nomination as judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.