PESHAWAR, Nov 9: The public prosecutors in the NWFP have requested the president to take note of the delay by the provincial government in the enactment of a proposed law for the creation of an Independent Prosecution Service.

The issue of the enactment of the NWFP Prosecution Service (Creation, Functions and Powers) Ordinance has been lingering on for more than a year as the question of whether to place the service under the supervision of the law department or the home department has yet to be resolved.

It is learnt that the prosecutors sent a letter to the president a few days back requesting that they be released from the control of the provincial law department. They believed that the vested interests of the law department, which wanted to supervise the service, were hindering the enactment of the law.

A cabinet committee led by NWFP Food and Excise Minister Fazale Rabbani has been discussing streamlining of the police affairs and the establishment of the prosecution service for about six months.

The committee has approved the prosecution law and put forward certain recommendations regarding amendments to the Police Order, 2002.

During the meetings of the committee, the law and home departments stuck to their stands on the issue.

The provincial cabinet discussed the issue last month but could not resolve it and referred it again to the committee.

Despite objections by certain quarters that the prosecution law and the Police Order were different issues and should be dealt with separately, the committee and the cabinet continued discussion on them simultaneously.

The prosecutors claimed that Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan had promulgated the ordinance. They said the Balochistan government had presented the ordinance in the provincial assembly, which passed it as an act. In those provinces the prosecution service was under the supervision of the home departments, they said.

The proposed ordinance was drafted by the federal government and  circulated among the provincial governments last year for establishing a uniform system of prosecution service.

As the prosecution service is a provincial subject, the provincial governments would have to decide whether to enact the law in its original shape or to make changes in it.

Previously, the prosecution branch was attached with the police department. However, under the police reforms it has been attached with the law department.

The prosecutors claimed that the service could not function independently under the law department as the secretary other officials there were serving judges.

They said placing of the prosecutors under the law department would be against the principle of the separation of the judiciary from the executive.

Under the ordinance, the provincial government will establish a prosecution service and appoint a prosecutor-general to lead it.

Through the proposed law, wide ranging powers will be assigned to  the prosecutor-general, the district prosecutors and the public prosecutors.

The public prosecutor will be empowered to lodge a case with a court after receiving the report from the police.

He will be empowered to withhold the case for want of evidence and return it to the investigation officer with directives to resubmit it after removing the deficiencies.

The law empowers the district public prosecutor in case of offences carrying the punishment of seven years or less of imprisonment and the prosecutor-general for all other offences to withdraw from the prosecution, subject to approval of the government.

Only the home secretary will be empowered to withdraw the prosecution of an offence falling under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.