July 20, 2006	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 23, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, July 19: President Pervez Musharraf has settled a row between the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) and members of the Parliament over reforming the Police Order 2002, an official source said on Wednesday.

During a recent meeting with the president the ruling party legislators had complained that the NRB was not letting them amend the law which, they said, had lapsed and been promulgated five times because it had not been passed by parliament.

The NRB was trying to protect its brainchild from the onslaught of parliamentarians on the grounds that the ordinance was part of the sixth schedule of the Constitution and could not be amended without prior permission of the president.

However, the president, after hearing the opinion of the legislators, observed that lawmakers were free to do whatever they thought right.

When Minister of State Chaudhry Shahid Akram Bhindar was approached for comments, he simply observed: “It is a defective law.”

He said the biggest setback the law had created was that it had divided police into two wings at the cost of public service.

The standing committee on interior, after discussing the Police Order in detail, had suggested introduction of a three-tier system, he said, adding that the bill was pending before the Parliament and was expected to be taken up during the upcoming session of the National Assembly.

The standing committee had suggested that the matter should be decided by the DPO concerned or, in case the complainant is not satisfied with his judgment, by an appellate forum at the level of the DIG or the IG.