KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday directed the inspector general of police to set up investigation cells at district level to separately deal with cases declared ‘A-class’ and pending in courts across the province.

Expressing concerns over glaring contradictions in the data submitted by police, prosecution department and subordinate judiciary regarding the ‘A-class’ cases — cases in which accused persons are unknown or untraceable — pending in Sindh, the SHC also directed the district courts and the member of its inspection team (MIT) to maintain the record of such cases and sought a report by Feb 26.

A single bench headed by Justice Salahuddin Panhwar also asked judicial magistrates to fix all the ‘A-class’ cases fortnightly in the cause lists and put the victims/complainants and investigating officer (IOs) on notice.

It also ordered the Karachi police chief to file a report about ‘A-class’ cases on the next hearing and also called details of such cases from the special investigation units of police including the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), Special Investigation Unit (SIU) and Anti-Violent Crime Cell (AVCC).

A report filed by the office of the prosecutor general says 88,211 ‘A-class’ cases pending in Sindh

The bench also asked the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) to cooperate with police in providing necessary and required information in every criminal case.

On Jan 24, the bench had called reports from the police, prosecution department and judicial magistrates regarding the details of the ‘A-class’ cases pending in the province.

Police, PG office, judges differ on ‘A-class’ cases’ numbers

When the matter came up for hearing on Wednesday, a report submitted by an assistant inspector general of police (legal-II) stated that around 54,400 ‘A-class’ cases were pending in Sindh.

However, another report filed by the prosecutor general’s office stated that 88,211 such cases were pending in the province. And reports filed from some district judges said that 46,000 ‘A-class’ cases have been pending in three districts of Karachi.

The bench observed that it was unable to appreciate the serious contradictions in the statistics because all of these were supposed to be strongly linked in maintaining the record of every summary report submitted under the ‘A-class’ in the courts of magistrates by the police.

It added that if the IOs and the magisterial courts had been maintaining the record rightly then there would have been no difference in the number of such cases.

The bench deplored that both sides had not maintained proper record of such cases.

It appeared that the police had no record of such cases and their monitoring since the AIGP-legal was unable to assist the court and conceded that he had not visited the website supposed to be created by police to flash details of such cases as per the direction issued in a 2016 SHC judgement in Nasrullah’s case.

Besides, he was also unaware of its present status, it added.

579 officials working in investigation section in Karachi

Another police official informed the bench that at present, only 579 police officers from ASIs to inspectors were working in the investigation section of police in Karachi region. He added that the recruitments were being made in the investigation section as well as in the CTD.

The bench directed the DIG (establishment) to submit a detailed report in this regard on the next hearing.

The bench was further informed that as per its earlier directive, the IGP had nominated an SSP as the focal person to provide assistance to the prosecutor general’s office with regard to ‘A-class’ cases.

Previously, the bench had asked top officials of police and prosecution to divulge a 2016 judgement (Nasrullah verses SHO) of the SHC regarding ‘A-class’ reports to their departments and file complete record of last 10 years. It also directed the MIT to call reports in this regard from judicial magistrates.

These directions had come during the hearing of an application in which the applicant submitted that he had lodged an FIR at the Ferozabad police station, but police failed to arrest the accused and filed an ‘A-class’ report.

He added that after getting some information about the accused he approached the district and sessions court concerned for reinvestigation, but the plea was dismissed on the ground that the order passed by a magistrate on the police report was not amendable.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2019