A number of special courts including Anti Terrorists Courts for the Federal Capital territory will start functioning under one roof from March next year. Secretary Ministry of Law and Justice Muhammad Masood Chishti told APP that efforts were afoot to bring all these courts under one roof in Islamabad.
He said the construction work on the building in Mauve Area to accommodate these courts along with required facilities would be completed in the next year and hopefully all the courts would be re-located there. Replying to a query, he said that staff for Anti-Terrorist courts and others had already been deputed and for appointment of judges the Chief Justice of Islamabad High Court would start the process.
About fifty percent judges would be appointed from the Federal territory while the equal number of judges would be from other provinces. These special Courts included Banking court, Customs court, Anti Terrorism court, Labour Court, Customs, Excise and Sales Tax tribunal, Sales, Commercial Court, Special Judge Central and Drug court; etc, he added. A number of Special Courts, which are meant for specific territory were not located in the Federal Capital Territory adding to the litigants' problems. The Capital with a thriving population of about 1.8 million have fewer facilities of special courts and that too were located in Rawalpindi.