On the first working day of every month, khuli katcheris (open courts) are held at the Punjab Land Records Authority, Punjab Disaster Management Authority and some other provincial government departments. The idea, according to Hanif Gul, Railways’s divisional superintendent, is to afford the common citizens direct and personal access to a person in authority to voice their legitimate concerns.

Gul, who regularly holds open courts in person as well as online, tells TNS: “Every government officer and official should follow the open-door policy. They should be approachable for the general public. Open courts help the bureaucracy feel the pulse of the public and formulate policies accordingly.”

In 2018, right after coming into power, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government had announced setting up a citizens’ portal under the Prime Minister’s Performance Delivery Unit. Divisional and district administrations were also asked to hold open courts in their jurisdictions.

On January 1 this year, however, no open court was held in any police or district administration offices. It was said that the district administration had been busy with anti-smog measures as per Lahore High Court orders. However, Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Ali insists that open courts are a regular feature. He reiterates that these are “meant to solve public complaints right away.”

Providing the breakup of the performance of open courts at his office, the DC says that between August 24 and December 31, he received 167 applications. Of these, 90 percent were addressed within a week; only 10 percent required a longer process.

He says that every day from 10am to 11am, he sits in the lawns of the DC office and everyone is welcome to meet him. “The [open courts’] purpose is to offer citizens faster relief,” he adds.

Advocate Mushtaq Hussain seconds the DC’s claims, saying that at an open court all concerned officials are present, which serves to fast-track the resolution of complaints.

Malik Sajid Khokhar, from Thokar Niaz Baig, is one of the beneficiaries of the open court held at the office of the assistant commissioner of Raiwind. He says he needed to have a land record corrected, for which he had kept running after the patwari of his area for almost three months, to no avail. “By chance, I was in the tehsil complex when I heard that an open court was going on. That changed things for me for the better.”

Recalling his experience with the open court, Khokhar says, “I had to wait for an hour or so before I got to put up my application before the AC sahib. But as soon as I did so, the patwari in question agreed to correct the record. By the evening, my issue had been resolved.”

Higher Education Secretary Ahmed Raza Sarwar says that every public official should hold open courts. “I have an open-door office policy, which has helped me cull red tape in matters of teachers’ transfers,” he adds.

Talking about the complainants at his open courts, Railways divisional superintendent Gul says that they “ask for favours, but [the open courts] help the department to determine the loopholes in its official workings. In many cases, the files wouldn’t tell you accurate facts or give you the true situation. In September last, several complainants approached me through our online open court, demanding the resumption of the Baba Farid Express train on Pakpattan and Bahawalnagar sections. The next day, I visited the areas and came to know that the train was the lifeline for many people in the area. I took up the issue with the higher authorities and got it resolved in a matter of days.”

Gul admits to being a great supporter of open courts and e-courts for the very reason that they “give voice to citizens and are a great way to interact with the public.”

There are other voices being heard. Dr Rizwan Safdar, an assistant professor in the Sociology Department of the University of the Punjab, regards open courts as “a relic of the Mughal Darbars. These reflect a refined feudal mindset.

“When someone approaches a babu as a sayel (complainant), it breaches their self-respect,” he argues. “Instead, the government should promote a citizen-driven and interactive space that focuses on complaints and grievances redress mechanism, particularly for individuals based in rural centres.”

In this respect, Hanif Gul suggests introducing an automated mechanism that processes public complaints more swiftly.

Journalist Asif Mahmood, who covers public offices, is of the view that an officer’s proactive approach towards regular public complaints changes the culture of his office. He gives the example of officers like Babar Hayat Tarrar, a senior member of the Board of Revenue, and Abdullah Sumbal, the incumbent chief secretary, who reduced the backlog of files through open courts and open-door policies.

In the opinion of the Higher Education Secretary Ahmed Raza Sarwar, every public official should hold open courts. “I have an open-door office policy, which has helped me cull red tape in matters of teachers’ transfers,” he says. Besides, according to Sarwar, administrative tasks such as meetings and field trips typically keep officers occupied.

On the other hand, DIG (Operations) Afzaal Ahmed believes that social media has become a modern-day open court. Like other government departments, his office hosts a dedicated social media monitoring cell which tracks public complaints and ensures reasonable action.

For Dr Safdar, too, social media is “the new-age, digital courtroom.” He says that in some cases, the court documents can also be found on social media and are accessible to the public. However, he supports the Citizens’ Complaint portal where confidentiality of the complainant is protected.

The writer is a media veteran interested in politics, consumer rights and  entrepreneurship