ISLAMABAD: A Supreme Court justice emphasised the need to build public confidence in the police and told the police to improve law and order, particularly in the rural areas, at a meeting of the Police Reforms Committee (PRC) on Monday.

Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, chairman of the Law and Justice Commission, chaired the PRC meeting held at the SC.

According to a press release, Justice Gulzar Hussain said the police needs to improve law and order in the rural areas because that is where most Pakistanis reside and there is a likelihood that local influential people could exert pressure on police in such areas. In such situations, the role of the police is even more important in terms of differentiating the truth from false and motivated criminal cases.

Speaking about the PRC’s future plans, Justice Khosa said the National Police Bureau needs to devise a uniform strategy across the country on the correct narration of FIRs, unnecessary arrests and false evidence, so misuse and abuse of the process of registering criminal cases can be discouraged, the statement said.

The committee unanimously decided that the committee will consider these issues as the next step to successfully achieving police reform. In the meantime, the National Police Bureau will, in consultation with all IGPs, prepare a proposal on the aforementioned issues and share them with the committee.

On the agenda for the PRC meeting were a mechanism to address public complaints, measures taken to improve investigation quality and their results, and enhancing the effectiveness of the criminal justice system dealing with cases under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Law and Justice Commission Secretary Dr Mohammad Raheem Awan, in an overview of the meeting’s agenda, said there are 24,387 pending with Public Complaint Redressal Centres as of Jan 1, while 77,451 complaints were instituted and 95,041 were disposed of between Jan 1 and Sept 15.

Dr Awan added that 144 major and 479 minor penalties were imposed on delinquent police officers and staff in this period.

He said 20,796 complaints regarding the non-registration of FIRs of which 19,123 were disposed of and 2,593 are still pending.

Appraising the performance of complaint cells, he compared writ petitions and petitions under 22-A and 22-B of the CrPC filed between Jan 1 and Sept 15 this year with those filed in the same period in 2018.

He said 14,733 writ petitions were instituted in the high courts in 2018 while 12,187 writ petitions were instituted in the high courts between Jan 1 and Sept 15, 2019. He said this reflected that 17.3pc of the workload of filing writ petitions has been reduced from high courts due to the effective performance of Public Complaints Redressal Centres.

Dr Awan also included statistics from the district judiciary, saying that 124,330 such petitions were instituted between Jan 1 and Sept 15 this year, compared to 186,567 last year. This was a reduction of 33pc in the workload of filing such petitions in the district judiciary.

IGP Punjab retired Capt Arif Nawaz Khan told the PRC about the establishment and working of district assessment committees (DAC). Sharing data from the DACs, he said the analysis of acquittals in murder cases between Jan 1 and July 31, 2019, revealed a 31pc conviction rate and 69pc acquittal rate in the total number of decided cases (2,586) in Punjab.

Justice Khosa expressed concern at the rate of acquittals due to flaws in investigations.

All the IGPs said DACs consist of a retired district and sessions judge with significant experience in criminal cases, a superintendent of police investigation, an investigating officer, a prosecutor, a senior lawyer with experience in criminal cases and a young lawyer.

DACs are to evaluate judgements passed in murder cases and review acquittals and bail cases.

The chief justice expressed confidence and satisfaction with the working of Public Complaint Redressal Centres and DACs.

The meeting was attended by SC Senior Puisne Judge Gulzar Ahmed, serving IGPs from all four provinces, Islamabad Capital Territory, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, former IGP Afzal Ali Shigri, Asad Jahangir Khan, Dr Shoaib Suddle, Tariq Khosa and the designated director general of the National Police Bureau.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2019