PESHAWAR: The district courts and tribunals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will resume administrative and judicial work tomorrow (Monday) after a break of around two months.

The staff members and visitors to the courts will strictly follow the standard operating procedures formulated by the Peshawar High Court to stem the spread of coronavirus.

The high court had ordered the closure of district courts and tribunals on March 24 over the outbreak of novel coronavirus (Covid-19).

Its registrar notified the courts` reopening on Saturday.

The notification said all courts and tribunals throughout the province would become fully functional on Monday.

A day ago, the high court had announced that it and its all benches would resume operations on June 1.

The reopening of the district courts was discussed during a consultative meeting of the district judiciary here.

High court registrar Khawaja Wajihuddin chaired the meeting, which was held through the Zoom videoconferencing technology.

The decision on the reopening of courts was made with the consentof district judges and bar associations.

Few days ago, the high court had ordered district and sessions judges and senior civil judges to resume duty af ter Eid holidays.

After the outbreak of Covid-19 in the province,the high courthad ordered on Mar 24 the closure of all local courts. Only few judges and essential staff were assigned duties to handle cases of urgent nature.

Initially, the high court had decided that two single-member benches at the principal seat and one single-member bench at the circuit benches would deal with civil and criminal matters of urgent nature and that a sessions judge and a civil judge-cumjudicial magistrate would work in every district court.

However, the number of judges in district courts was later increased and from Apr 13, the number of judges at the high court`s principal seat went up from two to three.

All high court benches resumed operations on Apr 20. However, after some employees tested positive for Covid-19, the high court had issued a notification on May 12 suspending operations until May 31.

Only two single-member benches continued to function to handle cases of urgent nature.