KARACHI, Nov 10: Justice Haziqul Khairi, the Ombudsman for Sindh, has suggested to the government to shelve the idea of having a system of district ombudsman in the province.
The system of district ombudsman under the Nazim or the minister of local government, as envisaged under the Local Bodies Ordinance 2001, was against the very concept of administrative justice and if it came into being it would cause irreparable damage to this newly-introduced system in the country, he observed while speaking at a ceremony held here in connection with the Decade of Sindh Ombudsman.
Sindh Governor Mohammedmian Soomro was the chief guest. The Chief Justice of the Sindh High Court, Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad, Corps Commander Karachi Lt- Gen Tariq Waseem Ghazi, Ombudsman for Balochistan Malik Sikandar Khan, former ombudsman for Sindh, Justice Salahuddin Mirza, ministers, judges and other dignitaries were present at the ceremony.
Both at the federal and provincial levels, ombudsman was invested with powers to establish regional offices through which he could reach the grassroots level. If due to political expediency or otherwise the government was keen to have district ombudsman, he should be protected from the executive and placed under the appellate and administrative jurisdiction of the provincial ombudsman such as the High Court had over the lower judiciary, the Sindh ombudsman proposed, and said this would be in consonance with the basic concept of independence of ombudsman from the executive.
Justice Khairi also pointed out that with the introduction of district ombudsman, the possibility of one overlapping the other could not be ruled out. And if it so happened, it might be detrimental to the office of ombudsman.
Presenting an overview of the performance of the provincial ombudsman office, Justice Khairi said as many as 70,767 complaints had been received since his taking over this office in September 1999, of which 63,975 were against provincial agencies. As many as 20,025 complaints had been anonymous or without jurisdiction and had been rejected, thus in all 50,792 complaints were disposed of.
“In addition to this, I took cognizance of Gutka & Supari, rise in dogbite cases, charged parking, provision of public toilets, encroachments on pavements and parks and non-registration of private schools etc,” he said.
He also spoke on maladministration in the Karachi Development Authority, education and other departments.
“Education is another field of gross maladministration. Hundreds of unregistered schools have been set up or are being set up in the city of Karachi alone. I have directed the authorities concerned to take punitive action against them. Likewise, health and women and juvenile jails are other areas which attracted my attention. I have constituted inspection committees of experts in these sectors which will submit their report to me, in due course of time,” the ombudsman said.—PPI
