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ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Tuesday announced that the federal cabinet has approved formulation of a separate judicial system for Overseas Pakistanis to ensure summary trial.
“We have given approval for a separate judicial system for overseas Pakistanis, continuing our tradition to work for their benefit,” the minister said while addressing a post-cabinet press conference in Islamabad.
Fawad further said that under this system, summary trials would be held for the cases of overseas Pakistanis. “An act for the implementation of this system in Islamabad had been sent to the Council of Common Interests and later, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would adopt the same law,” he announced.
In this connection, he acknowledged that principally, expeditious trials were the right of every citizen. “However, overseas Pakistanis come from abroad. They can’t stay here for long and so this has been done for them,” he explained.
Briefing the journalists about other decisions, Fawad said in line with the announcement by Prime Minister Imran Khan, the federal cabinet has approved a 15% increase in the salaries of the civil armed forces and 15% disparity allowance for federal employees from grade one to 19.
Meanwhile, the information minister reiterated that there was no doubt that the price of petroleum products will increase further. However, he added that the decision regarding the price of petrol does not depend on the cabinet as it is dependent on other factors.
‘Vaccine dilemma’
Speaking about the provincial vaccine dilemma, Fawad said that the Sindh chief minister had asked the federal government to import vaccines for them.
“Sindh government has not even spent a single dollar on vaccines and all vaccines were provided by the federal government,” he said, adding that despite that, the number of people vaccinated in Karachi is comparatively very less.
He further added that $725 million have been received from international institutions for the purchase of vaccines, stating that vaccines worth $2.5 billion have already been administered to people.
‘Cabinet concerned over numerous stay orders’
Chaudhry told media persons that the cabinet had also expressed concerns over the large number of stay orders, which he contributed to preventing the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) from collecting the revenue of over Rs3 million.
He said the country was facing an “administrative crisis” due to the large number of stay orders and the law ministry had been asked to take up this matter with the chief justice of Pakistan and chief justices of high courts.
“It has been recommended that there should be a separate forum to resolve such policy issues and the cabinet hopes that the chief justice of Pakistan will present a serious point of view of the judiciary over this matter,” he added.
