LAHORE: The out-of-turn promotion cases took a new turn as the Punjab Police Department moved a summary to the chief minister to give ‘certain exemptions’ to senior police officers including 20 superintendents of police (SPs) to re-fix their seniority equal to their batch-mates, a source told Dawn on Friday.

Just a day earlier, IGP Mushtaq Ahmad Sukhera had issued a notification of making police officers including 35 DSPs officers on special duty. The action was taken in the light of the Supreme Court direction which had declared the out-of-turn promotions of the police officers illegal.

In the wake of the new notification issued by the IGP last (Thursday) night, the officers have not only been removed from their positions but also been replaced by their colleagues with immediate effect.

The source said the Punjab police had earlier withdrawn their ranks before making them OSD. For the next and last step, the department had initiated process to re-fix their seniority through the summary sent to the chief minister for final approval.

Among the SPs who were removed are Lahore Crimes Investigation Agency SP Muhammad Umer Virk, Faisalabad CIA SP Ejaz Shafee Dogar, Mandi Bahauddin District Police Officer Raja Basharat, Punjab Highways Patrol Multan SP Shahid Razaq Qureshi, Lahore Anti Vehicle Lifting Squad SP Awais Malik, Khushab DPO Faisal Gulzar, Gujranwala City Division Additional SP Tahir Maqsood, Khanewal Investigation SP Naeem-ul-Hassan, Special Protection Unit Punjab SP Syed Jamat Ali Bukhari, Rawalpindi Operations SSP Karamat Ullah Malik, Gujrat DPO Zameerul Haq, Bahawalpur Region Special Branch SP Amir Tamur, Lahore Central SPU SP Syed Mukhtar Hussain Shah and PHP Faisalabad SP Farooq Ahmad.

The source said the Punjab police had planned ‘another favour’ to the affected police officers by awarding them exemption on the pressure exerted by their senior colleagues who stepped up their support.

The police officers were of the view that their affected colleagues had missed their departmental courses and only exemption from this step was the solution to give them ranks equal to their batch-mates.

He said the department assured that the seniority of all officers who had been close to the police headquarters would be re-fixed with their batch-mates who are having ranks from sub-inspector to DSP. For the purpose, he said, the police engaged the law department in a series of meetings when the experts warned that legal complications may create serious issue in future if the affected police officers were again awarded seniority without departmental courses.

The law department said as they had been granted out-of-turn promotions by the senior police officers, the punishment of making them junior to their batch-mates would not be a justified step. It suggested the Punjab police administration to seek exemption from the chief minister from these mandatory steps.

After brainstorming meetings which lasted for six to seven hours, the summary has been moved to the chief minister to exempt them from the missing courses to re-fix their seniority, the source said.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2016