Daily Times

With a view to address the deficiencies in the current criminal justice system of the country on Monday, especially in the context of police laws, Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa constituted a Police Reforms Committee with mandate to examine the relevant laws and to suggest recommendations therein.

It is pertinent to mention that during its meeting on January 7, 2019, a committee had principally decided that police reforms maybe prioritised for implementation and in this context, the complaint redressal mechanism and police investigation may be taken up firstly.

While chairing the meeting of the committee on Monday, CJP Asif Saeed Khosa, who is also Law & Justice Commission of Pakistan (LJCP) chairman underscored a dire need for training of the investigation officers and prosecutors.

The chief justice said such programmes should be carried out in the judicial academies across the country in order to improve their professional standards.

While pointing out gray areas of investigations, Asif Saeed Khosa emphasised upon investigating agencies to chalk out such mechanism of investigation that not only the culprits of the offence are pointed out but they be convicted under the relevant provisions of law by providing the truthful evidence and the apprehension of false evidence be totally eliminated.

Khosa says such a mechanism should be chalked out that not only the culprits of the offence are pointed out but they be convicted under the relevant law as well

Discussing agenda items including implementation of public complaints redressal mechanism; measures to improve quality of investigation and criminal justice reforms under the aegis of Asif Khosa, Amjad Javed Saleemi, Punjab Inspector General Police (IGP) Dr Naeem Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) IGP Dr SK Imam, Sindh IGP, Balochistan IGP Mohsin A Butt, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) IGP Amir Zulfiqar Khan, Azad Jammu & Kashmir IGP Salahuddin Khan, Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) IGP Sanaullah Abbasi, former IGPs Tariq Khosa, Shaukat Javed, Tariq Parvez, Dr Shoaib Suddle, Syed Masud Shah and Afzal Ali Shigri gave presentations to the committee.

Welcoming the participants of the meeting, LGCP Secretary Dr Muhammad Rahim Awan gave a brief background of the working of Police Reforms Committee and agenda of the meeting.

Asif Khosa expressed in his opening remarks that despite launching of the Police Reforms Committee Report, the key stakeholders of the criminal justice system and the general public are not still aware of the contents of the same. The CJ also issued directives to the secretary to convene a meeting of the relevant stakeholders of the criminal justice system for a comprehensive briefing about the contents and purposes of the Police Reforms Committee Report.

During the meeting of the committee, Punjab IGP informed that the complaints redressal mechanism has already been operationalised after the direction of the Steering Committee on Police Reforms dated October 29, 2018.

Complaints are being received through email, post, by hand, through dedicated phone numbers and other means of communication for convenience and to facilitate the general public for speedy and expeditious redressal of grievances being faced by them.

The Punjab IGP informed that around 163 complaints are being received per day by the fulltime designated police officers. He further stated that a total of 11,436 complaints were received for the period from December 1, 2018 to February 8, 2019 and 7,382 complaints have been disposed of while 4,054 are under process.

The Sindh IGP informed that 21,218 complaints were pending on December 31, 2018 and the number of complaints received in January 2019, was 2,324.

He further informed that as many as 17,313 complaints were disposed of in January.

KP IGP informed that during January 2019, a total number of 1,573 complaints were received, adding that as many as 1,037 complaints have been disposed of until January 31, 2019 while 536 are pending.

Likewise, the Baloch IGP said that so far, a total of 117 complaints have been received from which as many as 72 have been disposed of whereas 45 complaints are under process.

The ICT IGP informed that for the period November 1, 2018 until date, a total of 3,845 complaints have been received whereas, 3,283 complaints have been redressed while 250 are in process.

GB IGP informed that only 15 complaints have been received and 10 have been resolved while five are pending.

After these presentations, the committee deliberated that such complaints redressal mechanism will provide speedy and expeditious redressal to the complaints of the general public at their own doorstep and would also decrease the burden/backlog of the courts the shape of 22-A and 22-B of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 and writ petitions of similar nature.

Published in Daily Times, February 12^th 2019.