02 March 2004	Tuesday	10 Muharram 1425

PESHAWAR, March 1: A row between the provincial law and home departments over the issue of attachment of the prosecution service is causing delay in streamlining it.

Sources said NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani approved a summary last month for the attachment of the service with the home department, butdue to some legal issues pointed out by the law department the notification could not be issued.

It is learnt that a notification was prepared on Feb 9 after the approval of the summary and the establishment department sent it to the law department for whetting.

The law department pointed out that as the prosecution service was attached with it, attaching it with the home department required an amendment to the Rules of Business, 1985, for which the summary had to be approved by the governor, an official said.

It is learnt that the summary has been sent to the governor. Due to the complications, reforms could not be introduced in the prosecution service under the Access to Justice Programme funded by the Asian Development Bank.

Since the idea of the creation of an independent prosecution service was floated by the federal government in 2002, the law and home departments in the four provinces have been trying to supervise it.

In Balochistan, the provincial assembly created the independent service through an act and attached it with the home department. The federal government had circulated among the provinces the draft of the prosecution service (creation, functions and powers) ordinance in 2002.

As the prosecution service is a provincial subject, the provincial governments were asked to decide whether to enact the law in the same shape or to change in it.

Previously, the prosecution branch was attached with the police department. It was attached with the law department under the police reforms. A cabinet committee led by NWFP Food and Excise Minister Fazale Rabbani discussed the issue for a year but both the departments stuck to their stands.

The committee and the chief minister decided that the service should be attached with the home department. It is learnt that the public prosecutors sent a letter to President Gen Pervez Musharraf a few months ago and drew his attention towards the delay in the enactment of the prosecution law by the NWFP government. They blamed the law department for the delay.

Through the proposed ordinance, the public prosecutors would be empowered to lodge cases after receiving the reports from the police. They would be empowered to withhold the cases for want of proper evidence and return those to the investigation officer for the removal of deficiencies.

The proposed law also empowers the district public prosecutor in case of offences carrying seven years or less imprisonment and the prosecutor-general for all other offences to withdraw from prosecution, subject to the approval of the government. Only the home secretary would be empowered to withdraw the prosecution of an offence falling under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.