PESHAWAR, Oct 18: The provincial government has completely ignored the prosecution service in the Access to Justice Programme (AJP) and has not introduced any proper service structure for the public prosecutors.

Legal circles are of the opinion that the attention of the government focused attention on the judiciary and the police, but the prosecution service, which is an important component of the criminal justice system, has been neglected.

It is learnt that only few steps have been taken by the government regarding the prosecution service. In March 2004, the provincial government issued a notification whereby the prosecution directorate was detached from the law department and placed under the administrative control of the home department.

Secondly, the NWFP governor promulgated the Prosecution Service (Constitution, Function and Powers) Ordinance, 2004, in Aug 2004, which later on became an Act after its passage by the NWFP assembly in 2005.

Official sources informed that there is resentment among the public prosecutors as the three key posts in the prosecution directorate have been occupied by officials from outside. The director general, director (legal) and director (administration) are from outside and not from amongst the public prosecutors.

“Even in the rules it is clearly mentioned that the post of director (legal) shall be filled from amongst the public prosecutors,” an official informed.

As compared to the NWFP, in Punjab province incentives have been given to prosecutors. It is learnt that two years ago the Punjab government had upgraded the posts of district attorneys as well as deputy and assistant district attorneys. These posts stood upgraded from BS 18, 17 and 16 to BS 19, 18 and 17 respectively.

In the NWFP the post of district public prosecutor, which is equivalent to district attorney, is still in BS 18. The different tiers of prosecutors in NWFP are: district, additional, deputy and assistant public prosecutors who have been functioning in BS 18, 17, 16 and 14 respectively.

Keeping in view the upgradation of these posts in Punjab, the officials here believed that the post of district prosecutors should be upgraded to BS 19, additional PPs to BS 18, deputy PPs to BS17 and assistant PPs to BS 16.

In the NWFP the officers appointed as additional public prosecutors in BS 17 eight years ago have still been functioning in the same scale, whereas as compared to them in the judiciary the officers appointed in 1998 as civil judges in scale 17 have mostly been functioning as additional district and sessions judges in BS 19 or as senior civil judges in BS 18.

Moreover, in the AJP judicial allowance has been given to the judicial officers whereas no such allowance has been fixed for the prosecutors.

An official informed that under the AJP a PC-I was prepared more than a year ago and the chief executive of the province also approved it through which it was planned to purchase vehicles for the district public prosecutors (DPP). However, that plan has yet to be implemented. Under the new law various important functions have been assigned to the DPP, but no facilities have been provided to them.