Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered authorities concerned to devise a proper strategy for the disposal of criminal trials within the possible minimum time.

The departments concerned include the Attorney General of Pakistan, advocate generals, chief secretaries, home secretaries, DIGs, additional IG and prosecutor generals of all provinces and Islamabad Capital Territory, Ministry of Interior, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) IG and the ICT chief commissioner.

“We are constrained to give a wake-up call to the prosecution/State that in criminal cases involving capital punishment, the investigators and prosecutors – consisting of large fleets – who are being sustained and maintained at the cost of taxpayers money of the poor people, shall diligently perform their statutory duties/obligations otherwise, they will be guilty of violating the mandatory statutory provisions of the Cr.PC., the Constitution and Law relating to the prosecution branch,” the court observed.

It is a universal principle of law that the right to a speedy trial is granted to every individual accused, so unnecessary delay in the trial of such cases would amount to a denial of justice, the court held.

Justice Dost Muhammad Khan while authoring a 6-page order made observations in a bail case of Adnan Prince in which he had challenged the dismissal of his bail from the Lahore High Court (LHC).

The court held that the government had categorized the Police Department into detective, investigation and prosecution wings to channel the criminal justice system, adding that the federal and provincial governments had allocated an extraordinary budget to improve the system, but it had not served the purpose.

“Because supervising officers of these three wings of the police are taking the least interest to streamline the working of each wing, in an efficient and effective manner and to comply with the mandatory provisions of law,” the court observed.

The court stated that even today, charge sheets and the submission of penalties before the competent courts in criminal cases were delayed beyond the mandatory statutory period for no reason.

“This conduct and attitude as well as the performance of investigating, prosecution, and detective agencies are absolutely unacceptable and un-condonable because on the one hand, the law is disregarded while on the other hand, with the passage of time and long delay in the submission of challans, trials in each case is delayed and some of the witnesses, including star witnesses, either vanish; killed by the opponents, meet their natural death, or abandon their permanent abode/place of official duties due to transfer to another place or district making it a cumbersome job for the trial court to procure their attendance,” the court observed.