CJP directs police chiefs to speed up efforts to get sanctioned posts, funds

ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan Asif Saeed Khan Khosa has directed the police department to take necessary action for getting required posts and funds sanctioned by the relevant governments.

A meeting of the Police Reforms Committee (PRC) was held on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Chief Justice of Pakistan/Chairman Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan (LJCP) Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa in the Supreme Court of Pakistan building. The meeting was attended by the serving and former inspector generals to discuss on the agenda items including public complaints redressal mechanism, measures taken to improve quality of investigation and result thereof, output of liaison with judicial academies for joint training of investigation officers (IOs) and prosecutors, enhancing effectiveness of criminal justice system in dealing with ATA cases and on proposal for organizing a national conference on the investigation by the LJCP in collaboration with the National Police Academy (NPA) in Islamabad.

Dr. Muhammad Raheem Awan, Secretary LJCP welcomed the participants and gave a brief background of constitution, working of Police Reforms Committee (PRC) and agenda of the meeting. The chief justice expressed that the PRC is providing a forum to the police department to take vital initiatives for redressal of grievance of general public and speedy disposal of complaints, which, he said, will definitely reduce the unnecessary burden of cases on the judiciary.

The serving inspector generals from Sindh, Punjab, KPK, Balochistan, Islamabad, Gilgit-Baltistan and AJ&K informed the PRC about performance of the Police Complaint Redressal Centers from January 2019 to April 2019 by giving numbers of institution of the complaints, disposal, pendency and other details including actions taken against the delinquent police officers.

The chief justice appreciated the performance of the Police Complaint Redressal Centers. The IGPs also informed the CJP that checklist is prepared for IOs and now the IOs are following such checklist before submission of challans. SOPs are also prepared for conducting identification parade and other important factors required for investigation, which are mandatory to be followed by the IOs for completion of their investigation. The IGPs further informed that their department in collaboration with the judicial academies arranged the courses and trainings for improvement of skills of their IOs and this process will continue in future.

On this occasion, the chief justice directed that in the event of any need for training federal and provincial judicial academies may be taken onboard for this purpose. With regard to AJ & K police officers may be offered training courses in FJA, as there is no Judicial Academy in AJ & K.

The IGPs also informed the PRC about the statistics of ATA cases and details of their staff dealing with the ATA cases. After completion of presentations of the IGPs, Secretary LJCP Dr Muhammad Raheem Awan proposed organizing a national conference on the subject of investigation by LJCP in collaboration with the National Police Academy.

The chief justice extended his interest and other members of PRC also appreciated the proposal and endorsed that this will be a great initiative for the capacity building of the police officers. The chief justice extended concurrence for organizing a one-day national conference in the mid of June this year.