PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa home and tribal affairs department has proposed abolishing the Provincial Public Safety and Police Complaints Commission and putting its around 150 employees in the surplus pool.

A controversy has been surrounding the employees of the public safety bodies since Dec 2016, when the then home secretary, Shakil Qadir Khan, moved a summary for amendments to the KP Rules of Business to reflect the PPSPC as part of the home department.

Sources told Dawn that after six months long deliberations, the officials concerned had agreed to place the current PPSPCC employees in the surplus pool of the establishment department, while for the PPSPC to be set up under the provisions of Police Act 2017, the staff members would be hired on three years contractual basis.

A Dec 2016 home department summary available with Dawn notes that the PPSPC was proposed under the Police Order 2002, while in Jan 2005, a directorate of the district provincial safety commissions headed by an additional secretary was created at the home department to provide secretariat support to the commission.

Home dept suggests putting PPSPCC’s 150 employees in surplus pool

The directorate, which was to be attached with the establishment department under the Police Order 2002, was instead placed under the home department and was not reflected in the rules of the business at the same time.

Ironically, the home department took around 12 years to address the anomaly and asked the chief minister to name and reflect the commissions in the rules of the business as its attached department. Even in Sept 2016, KP had repealed the Musharraf era’s police order and promulgated the KP Police Ordinance, which was passed by the provincial assembly later in Jan 2017.

The establishment department referred the matter to the law department on Jan 23, which, after examining the issue, asked the home department to reconsider its proposal.

“On examination of the instant case, the law department is of the view that that Chapter V of the KP Police Act 2017 provides for the establishment and composition of the provincial and district safety commissions, which shall consist of 13 and 15 members respectively having a certain period of appointment, which cannot be considered as permanent and therefore, the safety bodies can’t be declared the attached department of the home department,” wrote then law secretary Mohammad Arifeen.

On April 17, 2017, the home department shot back seeking to approve its Dec 2016 proposal or to ask the chief secretary to propose a way forward after consultation.

There is confusion about the matter in which safety commissions and complaint authorities shall function under the dispensation of the KP Police Act 2017, the home department letter noted.

It added that in the absence of the rules, even the scrutiny committees couldn’t select members of those bodies let alone functioning of such important organs.

“The situation attains further gravity once one considers the fact that these bodies are only oversight mechanism available for cognisance in cases related to the police performance and complaints arising therein,” it noted.

The home department further noted that the hiring of contractual employees for the safety bodies would render them ineffective right from the day of inception, while the fate of the existing commission along with the placement of their staff also required immediate attention.

It added that a clear policy was required so that the working of safety bodies was fed into the provincial government to facilitate its role of ‘superintendence’ envisaged in Section 8 of the KP Police Act 2017.

Following re-examining the issue, the law department suggested on May 2, 2017, that a meeting be held with the chief secretary.

However, the meeting, which took place on May 9, failed to resolve the issue and instead ordered the reproduction of the case after consultation with the law secretary.

On July 19, 2017, home secretary Siraj Ahmed wrote to chief secretary saying a meeting, which took place in the office of the law secretary, unanimously agreed that no protection has been provided to the existing staff members of the safety bodies in line with the statuary requirements of the KP Police Act 2017, which provided that the secretariat of these bodies would be headed by the persons who shall be appointed by recommendation of these bodies for a period three years on contract basis.

“The existing staff of district and provincial public safety commission may be directed to report to surplus pool of establishment department,” Mr Siraj wrote, adding that those bodies’ assets should be placed at the home department’s disposal.

“The safety bodies staffers have 10 years of relevant experience in dealing with police complaints and oversight,” said a commission employee.

He said the dumping of trained staff members to the surplus pool and recruiting people on contractual basis for the purpose would be a waste of human resources and render their future uncertain.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2017