Pending cases

When temperatures start to rise, grass turns green and flowers start blossoming. It is a pleasant sign that spring has arrived. This spring, something else is also blossoming as well: suo motu cases. Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, if not in court room number 1, can be found in the wards of local hospitals, assuring patients that they will get proper medical treatment, and in the hallways of medical colleges, reprimanding the administration involved in overcharging tuition fee. The CJP has taken the idiom ‘justice at your doorstep’ in its true spirit.

He has recently expressed grave concern over heaps of garbage that now defines Karachi’s skyline. The SC appointed a judicial commission that has been constituted to ensure that all Karachi drains are cleared. While the chief justice’s desire to see Karachi clean and all drainage cleared is commendable, people like Sheikh Abdul Waheed, who purchased commercial plot in Lahore in an auction in 1956 and never got possession of the land, would rather see a massive backlog of cases stuck in the judicial drain cleared; 1,869,886 and counting. Thousands of poor people who are trapped in the juridical quagmire will be forever indebted to the CJP.

Syed Yasir Shah

Ontario, Canada