LAHORE, July 19 The Punjab government does not want restoration of deputy commissioners but actually seeks the pre-2001 powers for the district and executive magistrates in the light of the Supreme Court ruling of 1994, which separated the judiciary from the executive.

The method has been adopted in view of scathing criticism of the idea of restoring the defunct colonial office of the all-powerful deputy commissioner. The powers of the deputy commissioner-district magistrates were distributed among the judiciary, the police and the district nazim at the time of the enforcement of Gen Musharraf's devolution plan in the shape of the Local Government Ordinance 2001 and the Police Order 2002.

“This is an uphill task, but we want to tread the path carefully and without any conflict with the judiciary and the police using the powers of the district magistrate. We are not touching the over 200 lost powers of the deputy commissioner,” senior officials told Dawn while explaining how the government intended to restore the executive magistracy.

The officials claimed that executive magistrates' powers were well defined by the Supreme Court in its 1994 “Sharaf Faridi case” judgment, and in the Legal Reforms Ordinance promulgated in 1996 as a result.

“We are seeking powers for the judicial magistrates, which they were using in the light of the judgment and the ordinance till 2001. There is nothing more than this to avoid conflict with the judiciary or the police,” the officials claimed.

They said the Punjab government had also based its demand for the restoration of the executive magistracy on an advice of the Law and Justice Division given on May 8 this year. The advice said “Abolition of the executive magistracy was neither a legal requirement nor was it mandated by Article 175 of the Constitution, which only visualizes separation of the judiciary from the executive and not annihilation of the executive as was done in the dictatorial regime in 2001.”