Pakistan Bar Council, on Friday, urged the authorities to reverse the recently-introduced policy under which no session judge was allowed to entertain an applicant to register First Information Report (FIR) in a criminal offence until he had exhausted the Police forum.
National Judicial Policy Making Committee (NJPMC) recently resolved that after the registration of an FIR, no accused would be arrested unless solid evidence is available.
The Committee had also directed that since a Police Complaint Redressal Mechanism was operational at district level all over Pakistan as per the recommendations of the Police Reforms Committee, therefore, no session judge would entertain applications under Section 22-A and 22-B of the Criminal Procedure Code unless the Superintendent of Police (SP), Complaints, had failed to launch FIR in the concerned Police Station.
The vice chairperson of Pakistan’s apex regulatory body for lawyers, Syed Amjad Shah, expressed grave concern over this decision and urged for its immediate reversal in the next three days. Failing to do so would result in a strike from the legal fraternity, he continued.
Upon seeing the reaction from bar councils and bar association, as printed in the press, a clarification was issued, on Friday, in this regard from the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan, which termed it as a misunderstanding.
Commission Secretary, Dr Rahim Awan said, “It appears from a section of press that some sections of the Bar Councils and bar association have not properly understood the recent decision of the NJPMC regarding the newly created office of the Superintendent of Police (complaints) in every District of the country under the relevant law”.
He further added that the office of Superintendent of Police redressal mechanism was created a forum of internal accountability within the police and did not in any way abridge the jurisdiction of a Justice of Peace under section 22-A of the Cr.Pc or the jurisdiction of a High Court under Article 199 of the Constitution in the relevant matters.
An aggrieved person was said to still be allowed to lawfully approach a Justice of the Peace or a High Court in respect of a complaint against the police after exhausting his adequate alternate statutory remedy before a Superintendent of Police (Complaints).
