LAHORE Due to dissatisfaction shown by Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Chaudhry while addressing the judges in Karachi about the performance of special courts and progress of the cases under trial, Punjab Prosecution Department has claimed a marked improvement in its performance and efficiency mainly by virtue of induction of prosecutors on merit contrasting the past practice of appointing favorites in the department. The Punjab Prosecution Department (PPD) with existing strength of 460 prosecutors at three tiers, while another 409 awaiting recruitment, claimed that in 2010, it achieved 69 percent success in conviction rate at the High Court level and 84 percent at the Supreme Court. The department appointed nine additional and 25 deputy prosecutors to prosecute cases of heinous crimes before the superior judiciary. The department says, it showed best performance before the Special Courts, Anti-terrorism, and the distract courts by hearing the criminal cases throughout the province. In 2010, the PPD got decisions on as many as 20 terror cases in the ATC courts, while it prosecuted eight cases of acid throwing on the women before the special courts which awarded the accused jail sentences in difference terms. In one of the cases, an accused was awarded rigorous imprisonment of 77 years with a fine of Rs 1.2million. Last year, the Prosecution Department got as many as 114 hardened criminals convicted to death through the Special Courts and life term to another 144. Pursuing the cases before the court of Sessions Judges, it got 961 convicted to death and 826 to life sentence.