ISLAMABAD:- Pointing out grey areas of investigation, Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa on Monday stressed investigating agencies to chalk out such mechanism that the culprits are not only pointed out but are convicted by providing truthful evidence and apprehension of false evidence be totally eliminated.
The chief justice as Chairman Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan further emphasised that training of investigation officers and prosecutors should be carried out in judicial academies across the country to improve their professional standards.
He was heading the meeting of Police Reforms Committee which was held in the L&JCP. The Committee mandated to examine relevant laws and to suggest recommendations therein.
The Committee in its meeting held on January 7 had decided that the police reforms might be prioritised for implementation and in this context, mechanism for redressing complaints and investigation might be taken up first.
The meeting was attended by incumbent and former inspectors general of police of the provinces to discuss the agenda items including Implementation of public complaints redressal mechanism, measures to improve quality of investigation and criminal justice reforms.
Secretary LJCP Dr Raheem Awan welcomed the participants and gave a brief background of the working of Police Reforms Committee and agenda of the meeting.
The chief justice in his opening remarks highlighted the fact that despite launching of the Police Reforms Committee Report, key stakeholders of the criminal justice system and the general public were not still aware of the contents of the same.
He directed that the Secretariat of the L&JCP should convene a meeting of the relevant stakeholders of criminal justice system who would be briefed about the contents and purposes of the Police Reforms Committee report.
IGP Punjab said that the complaints redressal mechanism had already been operationalized after the direction of the Steering Committee on Police Reforms dated 29 October 2018 whereby the 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.
He said that around 163 complaints were being received per day to fulltime designated police officers. He further stated that total of 11,436 complaints were received for the period from 1st December 2018 to 8 February 2019 and 7,382 complaints had been disposed of while 4,054 were under process.
Sindh IGP said that a total of 21,218 complaints were pending on December 31, 2018 and the number of complaints received in January 2019 was 2,324. He further stated that the total pendency was 23,542.
He further stated that 17,313 complaints were disposed of in January 2019 and the pendency as on 1st February 2019 was 6,229.
The IGP of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said that during January 2019, a total number of 1,573 complaints were received. He further stated that 1,037 complaints have been disposed of till 31 January 2019 while 536 were pending.
Balochistan’s IGP said that so far 117 complaints had been received. He further stated that 72 had been disposed of and 45 were under process.
Islamabad’s IGP said that for the period from 1st November 2018 till date, a total of 3,845 complaints had been received. He stated that 3,283 complaints had been redressed while 250 were in process.
Gilgit-Baltistan IGP said that 15 complaints had been received and 10 had been resolved while 5 were 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 in the shape of 22-A and 22-B of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898 and writ petitions of similar nature.
Secretary LJCP stated that secretariat of the LJCP could engage federal and provincial judicial academies in arranging modules/courses for improvement of the professional standards of the investigation.
The Committee resolved that in its next meeting, measures to improve quality of investigation will be deliberated upon.