ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court reserved on Friday its ruling on determining the authority of ‘justice of peace’ — a judge of a lower court — to order registration of FIRs under Section 22-A (6) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), 1898.

The judgment was reserved by a five-judge larger bench consisting of Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan, Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik with the objective of revisiting its March 2014 decision of declaring the power of the justice of peace to order registration of an FIR as an administrative order and not judicial in nature.

The court decided to hold back the ruling with an observation that it would settle whether the authority of a sessions judge directing police to register the case could affect the subsequent trial and whether such a directive could be violative of the constitution or not.

The matter had been referred to the larger bench on Nov 20, 2014, by then chief justice Nasir-ul-Mulk when senior counsel Khawaja Haris appearing as amicus curiae (friend of the court) argued that the verdict had declared the power of the justice of peace as administrative when it should be a quasi-judicial power under Section 22-A (6) of CrPC.

A sub-section (6) was incorporated in Section 22-A of CrPC through a Code of Criminal Procedure (Third Amendment) Ordinance 2002 authorising the justice of peace to order registration of cases on complaints. A district sessions judge enjoys the authority to nominate a judicial officer for working as justice of peace.

The amicus curiae was of the view that vesting such rights with the sessions judge would help reign in police which had to answer before the judiciary, otherwise the unbridled police or “thana” culture would go out of hand.

The controversy cropped up on an appeal filed by one Younus Abbas over a land dispute. The land was given on rent to a mobile company by his close relative on forged documents. He had filed a complaint at a police station in Chakwal but when the case was not registered he approached the local justice of peace who ordered that the documents be sent to a forensic laboratory in Lahore to determine their veracity.

Later the justice of peace rejected his plea on a police report which he challenged in the Lahore High Court which also dismissed it.

Consequently, Mr Abbas moved the Supreme Court which clubbed his appeal with all petitions regarding the authority of justice of peace to come up with a common decision whether or not the authority given to any judicial officer or justice of peace was interference in the affairs of the administration.

The petitioner argued that the registration of a case on the directive of a sessions court would prejudice the trial because the decision whether or not to grant bail to an accused had to be taken by the same judge on whose order the FIR had been registered.

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2016