President Asif Ali Zardari on Thursday, on the advice of Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, has approved a 20 per cent increase in the salaries as well as judicial allowances for the judges of superior courts.According to the presidential order, monthly salary of the Chief Justice of Pakistan has been increased from Rs 4,48,221 to Rs 5,37,865.

Salary of the remaining judges of the apex court has been increased from Rs 4,23,414 to Rs 5,08,097 and their judicial allowance has been increased from Rs 1,96,219 to Rs 2,35,463.Meanwhile, monthly salary of chief justices of all high courts has been increased from Rs 4,25,426 to Rs 4,98,509. Increment in the salary of other judges of high court is from Rs 3,99,447 to 4,79,336 with judicial allowance increased to Rs 1,88,370.The salary as well as superior judicial allowance of the superior courts’ judges was increased by 50 per cent with effect from July 1, 2010 when this relief was allowed to all civil servants of the country.

Likewise, civil servants were granted an ad-hoc relief allowance of 15 pc of the basic pay with effect from July 1, 2011.The government had granted another ad-hoc relief allowance of 20 pc to all the civil employees as well as employees of the armed forces. However, this relief/increase was not extended to the judges of the superior courts at that time.The expenditure so incurred with this increase of salaries would be met from within the sanctioned budget of the respective courts.