The Lahore High Court chief justice on Wednesday reprimanded Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) for a police officer’s being still in service despite the fact that a court had declared him a proclaimed offender in 2008. Expressing his concerns over the matter, LHC top judge Ijaz Ahmed Chaudhry directed CCPO Ahmad Raza Tahi to evolve a mechanism of checks and balances in the department that can ensure that officials bringing a bad name to whole institution must no longer be part of it.
The chief justice said it was an obstruction in the dispensation of justice that the police officials supposed to be serving notices to respondents ‘crafted’ excuses to save the accused. The case that drew CJ’s ire was about Sub Inspector Abdul Shakoor, whom the court had served a notice but his colleagues instead told court that he was not available to receive the summon. The CCPO said that the constable and the SHO who had lied to the court about the SI were suspended and a disciplinary action was in process against them. The CCPO had been summoned in the case filed by Ms Khalida Perveen through her counsel Advocate Iqbal Bhatti.
The plaintiff contended that on September 13, 2008 she had an FIR registered against SI Abdul Shakoor of Islampura police station under sections 155 and 156 of PPC for torturing her sons in illegal custody.
The SI got bail but later he failed to appear for further hearings and was declared a proclaimed offender. Later he made his colleagues tell the court that he had been missing. The petitioner told the LHC that presently SI Shakoor was serving at Gulshan–e-Ravi police station.
