SC wants 120 more accountability courts established.

ISLAMABAD -- The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered the law secretary to immediately seek instructions from the government for setting up at least 120 accountability courts to clear a huge backlog of cases.

The directives were issued by the apex court after expressing dismay over 1,226 pending references since the year 2000 as well as vacancies in five accountability courts out of a total of 25.

'The whole purpose of making of accountability law apparently seems to be rendered futile if the courts are allowed to remain vacant,' regretted Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed.

The chief justice was heading a three-judge bench that had taken up a suo motu case regarding delay in trials before the accountability courts in the light of Section 16 of the National Accountability Ordinance 1999 which asks for deciding corruption matters within 30 days.

The suo motu proceedings were initiated when Justice Mushir Alam on Jan 8 had requested the chief justice to constitute a special bench and initiate suo motu proceedings over the delay in prosecuting the accused before the trial courts.

The Supreme Court also cautioned that it expected that the law secretary would fill all the available posts of five accountability judges within one week without fail or the court would take coercive action against the officials found defaulting in the performance of their duties.

Earlier also on Feb 13, the Supreme Court had expressed concern over capacity issues plaguing the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) when it was told that 1,226 references were pending before accountability courts and five such courts were without any presiding judge.

'Neither the investigating officers working with the NAB are well trained to properly probe the corruption allegations nor the prosecutors are interested to pursue the cases before the accountability courts,' the chief justice had observed.

On Wednesday the Supreme Court observed that neither the attorney general nor the law secretary or the prosecutor general of NAB was in attendance. Besides, no reason was offered why the vacant posts had not been filled.

'We are unable to understand the rational or logic behind the courts vacant for long periods... More so when we see that the cases before the accountability...