LHC issues guidelines for making district courts proceedings effective

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has issued guidelines for the district judiciary to make the court proceedings more effective.

The step has been taken to eliminate irregularities in the judicial proceedings, which were found during the inspection of district courts across the province.

According to a letter, issued by the Directorate of District Judiciary, LHC, to the sessions judges, all judicial officers had been directed to write all types of interim orders themselves, whether handwritten or dictated to the staff concerned. "No interim order should be written by the staff themselves," it said.

The directive stated that after the final arguments, the cases should not be given an unnecessary/ long date and the decision should be taken within the stipulated time period, prescribed under the Civil Procedural Code (CPC).

The directive stated that the courts should not issue repeat notices on technical grounds. Judicial officers should hear, examine and decide cases according to the pleading of the parties reflecting the real controversy and not in stereotype manner, it added.

Judges should keep in mind the Supreme Court verdicts including 2015 SMCR 1550 and 2020 SMCR 300 regarding recording of evidence and number of opportunities of production of evidence, it added.

The directive further stated that the criminal courts should strictly frame the charges in strict compliance with the Criminal Code and the applications of 249A and 265K in criminal cases should be disposed of in a timely manner as per the directions issued by the Lahore High Court. "Criminal courts should record evidence during the proceedings under Section 512 of the Criminal Code. Furthermore, in criminal cases, all available evidence against the accused should be placed before him while recording the statement under section 342," it added.

The directive directed the district and sessions judges across the province to inspect the record of all courts of their respective districts and send a certificate in this regard to the Directorate of District Judiciary within 15 days.

The inspections of district courts had been started on the directions of LHC Chief Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan lately.