PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court has decided to activate an existing committee chaired by senior puisne judge to purge corruption and malpractices from both the district judiciary and high court besides its benches.

The decision was taken at a recently-held full court judges meeting of the court chaired by PHC Chief Justice SM Attique Shah.

The meeting threadbare discussed multiple points on the agenda including contempt of court cases before the high court; delay in filing of comments in cases; mechanism for eradication of corruption from staff of PHC and ministerial staff of district judiciary; service stricture of appointments of staff for the high court and district judiciary; case management at the PHC level; policy for official visits and seminars; preparation of independent service rules of districtjudiciary and district judiciary establishment; and service ofnotices, etc.

With unanimous approval, the PHC chief justice ordered activation of the committee chaired by Justice Ijaz Anwar, the senior puisne judge, to purge corruption from districtjudiciary and high court.

The PHC chief justice also directed two other judges, Justice Waqar Ahmad and Justice Mohammad Faheem Wali, to ensure within two months the automation of ruledriven distribution of cases and fixation of cases before the principal seat and different benches of the high court and district judiciary.

It was decided that a senior bench should decide implementation matters on dedicated day, and the practice should be uniformly followed by all the benches.

The PHC chief justice observed that court processes were sacrosanct and every government agency, department or authority was bound to comply with judicial directions and where comments were sought, those must be furnished promptly and without delay.

It was decided that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa advocate general should, for each bench, depute an additional advocate general to ensure that comments were filed without delay and submitted with promptitude.

Regarding adjournment in cases, the meeting decided that adjournment in old cases should not be granted under any circumstances. `Where counsel is absent, written arguments shall be obtained and case fixed for orders after hearing the counsel presentbefore the court to ensure speedy disposal.

The meeting also discussed matter about fixation of contempt cases.

The meeting decided that contempt of court petitions should be first fixed before a single-member bench for initial examination and if the matter was found worth proceeding further, it might be placed before the appropriate jurisdiction, be it a single-bench or division-bench.

It decided that initial single bench taking cognisance of such matters should be of senior judges.

About policy for official visits and seminars, it was resolved that the matter should be placed before the administration committee.

It was decided that PHC registrar should visit National Institute of Public Administration (Nipa) and other academies/ institutes, examine their syllabus and course contents and recommend how those might be aligned with the training offered by KP Judicial Academy.

The PHC chief justice also directed that the draft KP Judicial Service Act, which had been pending since 2018, should be pursued with the provincial government at the earliest.

Inrespectofthe extension ofjurisdiction of KP Subordinate Judicial Service Tribunal to deal with matters of staff and officers of district judiciary, he observed that the draft was placed before the Rules Committee. He expected that at the earliest it should make its way to law department.