KARACHI: The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday expressed extreme annoyance over the lethargic attitude of the federal and provincial governments in taking action against the police officers with patchy record in the province and directed the establishment division secretary and home secretary to file comprehensive reports regarding the action taken against the police officials named in the list of misconduct filed by the provincial police chief.

Headed by Justice Gulzar Ahmed, a two-judge bench of the apex court sought reports from the establishment division secretary, the Government of Pakistan, and the Sindh home secretary regarding the action taken against 35 police officers of grade 18 and above, and 31 officials of BS-17, who were found involved in misuse of powers.

The bench that also comprised Justice Sajjad Ali Shah was hearing a case pertaining to the involvement of policemen in crimes at its Karachi registry.

Inspector General of Police (IGP) Sindh A.D. Khowaja appeared in the court to submit a report that said that there was no discrimination in initiating action against the delinquent officers as the same were already taken against low-ranking officers without delay.

He informed the judges that the police department was competent to take action against police officials up to the level of BPS-16 and below, while the provincial police chief was not authorised to take action against officers of grade 17 and above.

He added that the home minister was the competent authority to take action against officials of BPS-17 and for BPS-18 and above, the chief minister had the powers through SGA&CD.

A.D. Khowaja informed the apex court that he had sent the list of 31 officials of grade 17 to the home department and another list showing misconduct report against 35 officers of grade 18 was sent to the chief secretary.

The home secretary submitted a report, showing that that some action had been taken against 22 police officials of BPS-17; however, he failed to provide the details of specific allegations against each of those 22 officers.

Justice Gulzar asked why should punishment be different when the crimes were the same. “Everyone is busy with their own affairs, no one is interested in governance,” he said.

The head of the bench also came down hard on the home secretary and asked him why there were so many discrepancies in punishments. “You should be serving the public instead of the public master” he told the home secretary.

He further told the home secretary that the bench was being made to do what was the work of the administration. “You were appointed for this task, but we are doing the job,” he added.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2017