A meeting of the National Judicial Automation Committee (NJAC) was chaired by the Hon’ble Chief Justice of Pakistan, Mr. Justice Yahya Afridi, and attended in person by Hon’ble Mr. Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Chairman, NJAC; Hon’ble Mr. Justice Arbab Muhammad Tahir and Hon’ble Mr. Justice Muhammad Azam Khan of the Islamabad High Court; the Registrar, Supreme Court of Pakistan; Director General Reforms, Supreme Court of Pakistan; and Secretary, Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan. Other NJAC members joined online, including Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sultan Tanvir Ahmad and Hon’ble Mr. Justice Khalid Ishaq from the Lahore High Court; Hon’ble Mr. Justice Muhammad Faisal Kamal Alam and Hon’ble Mr. Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry from the High Court of Sindh; Hon’ble Mr. Justice Wiqar Ahmad and Hon’ble Mr. Justice Muhammad Faheem Wali from the Peshawar High Court; and Hon’ble Mr. Justice Shaukat Ali Rakhshani and Hon’ble Mr. Justice Gul Hassan Tareen from the High Court of Balochistan.
The meeting considered the implementation strategy for e-filing of cases and reviewed proposed standard templates to support a uniform digital filing process across the judicial system.
The Hon’ble Chief Justice informed the Committee that e-filing would initially be introduced for family cases on a pilot basis in selected courts across all provinces and the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). He also briefed members on the ICUN initiative, “One Case, One Identity,” which aims to assign each case a unique identity throughout its judicial lifecycle. His Lordship stated that relevant stakeholders had been consulted and that a preliminary draft had been shared with the NJAC for detailed review and refinement before submission to the National Judicial (Policy Making) Committee (NJPMC) for final consideration.
Hon’ble Mr. Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, Chairman, NJAC, then led detailed deliberations on the proposed e-filing template. He emphasized that the NJAC should develop a single, comprehensive template, without provincial variation, for adoption across all provinces and the Islamabad Capital Territory. The template should align with the relevant provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure and facilitate its use by judges, court staff, advocates and litigants.
Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar invited members to examine the template from legal and operational perspectives and submit suggestions within two weeks. The objective is to develop a secure, user-friendly framework that can be implemented consistently across jurisdictions.
The Chairman, NJAC, also reviewed the recently launched dashboard for real-time tracking of judicial data. Members informed the meeting that the respective High Courts were participating and that their IT Directorates were updating the data.
Mr. Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar expressed concern that data from the Prison Departments was reportedly arriving a month late, undermining real-time monitoring. He directed the Secretary, Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan, to take up the delay with the authorities concerned as a priority and streamline reporting to keep the dashboard current.
These initiatives support the judiciary’s efforts to standardize digital processes, identify cases securely, improve the availability of judicial data and make court services more accessible and efficient.
