Although the austerity drive in general is unclear, the Islamabad High Court returns over Rs 144 millions from its budget for the current financial year to the finance ministry.
Islamabad High Court allocated a budget of 1.1 billion rupees for the current financial year. On May 30, the Islamabad High Court handed over 144 million rupees to the Ministry of Finance.
After handing over the said amount, the revised budget of the Islamabad High Court is Rs 966 million. Recently the Chief Justice Islamabad High Court directed the authorities concerned to cut the budget. And hand over the savings to the national exchequer in the public interest and as a national cause.
The Chief Justice Islamabad High Court also ordered that no honorarium will given to any employee. Last year also in June, the IHC handed over 30 percent of the total budget allocated for the financial year 2021-22 to the national treasury.
In February this year, Shehbaz Sharif announced austerity measures that included budget cuts for all government agencies, certain perks and amenities for cabinet members, parliamentarians and civil servants, including luxury vehicles and security/protocols.
The Prime Minister also appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) and the judiciary- judges (both present and retired), court officials and employees – to contribute to the national austerity drive by reducing expenditure on the judiciary.
He expected the judiciary to limit the maximum pension of retired judges to Rs 5 lakh per month and also review the perks and facilities of the judges.
The finance and defense ministries are in touch to finalize their recommendations on non-combat defense budget cuts. But no announcement has yet made on how much the defense budget has cut. Similarly, the Supreme Court of Pakistan and the High Courts (with the exception of the Islamabad High Court) have indicated how much they saved from their budgets to contribute to the national austerity drive.
Interestingly, no update shared with this correspondent by the Prime Minister’s Office or the Finance Ministry on the implementation of the austerity measures announced by the Prime Minister. The prime minister did not reduce the size of his 85-member cabinet to 30 as suggested by the National Austerity Committee, but his cabinet members announced that they would not take any salary or perquisites from the public exchequer.