KARACHI: Chairman of the Executive Council of Citizen-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) retired Justice Nazar Akbar has tendered his resignation from the office in protest over the “illegal” continuation of the CPLC chief for the past five years without any official notification from the home department.

The former judge of the Supreme Court and the Sindh High Court had sent his resignation letter, along with detailed reasons behind his decision, to the chief minister.

According to the letter, a copy of which is available with Dawn, Justice Akbar informed the CM that CPLC chief Zubair Habib was continuing to “illegally” hold the office for the last nine years for the third consecutive term.

“In fact, from 01-12-2018, he [Mr Habib] has no lawful authority to continue to act as Chief CPLC and, therefore, precisely he has been impersonating whenever he introduced himself to anyone as Chief CPLC. Even otherwise it was a false representation of himself whenever he introduced himself as Chief CPLC,” he added.

The former SC judge says he is resigning in protest against CPLC chief’s holding of office ‘illegally’

Justice Akbar said that the “self-appointed” CPLC chief did not acknowledge the importance of CPLC Rules-2023 and the appointment of the Chairman of the Executive Council on 22-01-2024.

He said that Mr Habib was not ready to realise that his appointment as CPLC chief for three years vide notification date 02-12-2015 had ceased to be operative from 01-12-2018 and under the CPLC Rules-2023 and first duty of the Executive Council once constituted would be to appoint the Chief CPLC under Rule 6(3)(a) of the CPLC Rules, 2023.

He said that on his repeated requests the CPLC provided him some documents which clearly confirmed that the CPLC was functioning without any applicable law and without any lawful appointment of any of the officers or any staff including CPLC chief, deputy chief and others.

“I had already realized in the first and the only meeting with the man illegally holding the office of Chief CPLC that CPLC will continue to be run illegally and unlawfully, and the Private Members of the Executive Council will never be appointed,” he added.

He said that he on April 11, 2024, sent a message on WhatsApp to the home minister, who was an Ex-Officio member of the Executive Council of the CPLC and later called him, but to no avail.

Mr Akbar said that later he sent a letter to the home minister pointing out that the entire administrative set-up of the CPLC was unlawful unless the private members of the Executive Council were notified.

He said that suddenly on June 27 a meeting for the appointment of Private Members of the Executive Council was called in which the CPLC chief presented a list of private members he wanted to be appointed.

“I had repeatedly informed the participants that he is not lawfully holding the position of Chief CPLC, nor is he supposed to nominate Private Members for the simple reason that the appointment of CPLC Chief in terms of Rule 6(3)(b) is to be made by the Executive Council, and if the Executive Council is nominated by him, it would be a case of conflict of interest,” he said.

The former judge said that he had suggested the names of private members, which were not considered and despite his objections Mr Habib proposed several names for the appointment of Private Members of the Executive Council.

He further said that an amount of over Rs151 million was used in the financial year 2023 only for repair and maintenance of the office building without lawful authorisation to sign receipts and cheques for the accounts. “For the last six years, every financial transaction in the office of CPLC has been illegal and unlawful, which, in my view, amounts to corruption,” he added.

The CPLC chief, however, could not be reached for his version despite repeated attempts, nor did he reply to the queries texted to him on WhatsApp.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2024