The judiciary heads at the The Sindh High Court (SHC) have been directed to start using WhatsApp to ensure attendance of the witnesses for speedy completion of trials.
According to judiciary source, SHC Chief Justice (CJ) Ahmed Ali M Sheikh has issued this directive for all the district and session judges in the province. This initiative has been taken part of the long-term measures under the National Judicial Policy 2009.
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At the discretion of the session and district judges a WhatsApp group is to be formed to keep track of non-appearance of the witnesses and to update the senior officials. All the relevant judges will be added to the group and the administrator for the groups will either be selected from amongst the judges or will be the in charge of information technology department of the relevant district.
MIT-II, the CJ has agreed for this modus operandi to be implemented in all the districts throughout Sindh at the option of the district and sessions judges. The letter reads:
“The introduction of this system will not upset the prevailing legal procedural system”
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The letter also read that, all the important stakeholders in the groups, such as the deputy inspector-general of police, the senior superintendent of police, the deputy commissioner, the district public prosecutor, the police surgeon, jail superintendents, court police SP and security SP.
All the reports and progress have to be submitted within a month of the launching of these WhatsApp groups and the judges have also been asked to make suggestions for the improvement of the system, as ordered by CJ.
