LAHORE: A three-member bench of the Supreme Court is set to hear the matter of chronic political interference in the transfers and postings of the Punjab police on Wednesday (today).

Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial is heading the bench while other members are Justice Ayesha Malik and Justice Athar Minallah.

From the Punjab police department, DIG Legal Kamran Adil is likely to appear before the SC to present the police case following the court notice.

Frequent political interference, especially during the last few months, has pushed the largest police force of country to a blind alley, destroying the career of several police officers. A resident of Faisalabad, Rana Tahir Saleem, had taken up the matter through a petition he filed through his counsel, seeking appropriate orders to stop illegal political interference in the police matters. He also raised the issue of blatant violation of the Police Order 2002 regarding security of tenure and in transfer-postings of the policemen from SHO to IGP.

The petitioner also presented in the SC record of the average posting tenure in Punjab. He said he was in pain to point out that the autonomy of the police was being subverted by the political rulers through de facto use of illegal powers of police administration (ranging from the DPO to the IG police) in matters relating to the appointments/transfers.

“This has led to the serious deterioration of chain of command, resulting in politicisation of the police force which is the root cause of biased police investigations and unnecessary use of power by politically appointed officers,” reads the petition.

The petition further stated that the situation had also demoralised the police force resulting in the poor writ of the state.

In support of his claim, he presented the last four years’ record of appointments of the police officers and their posting tenure. According to the record, eight IGs of Punjab were posted from June 7, 2018 to Aug 29, 2022 with average appointment tenure of 6.25 months. Similarly, the government appointed nine Lahore capital city police officers (CCPOs) with average tenure 4.56 months.

About the RPOs, he said the Punjab government posted seven RPOs of Rawalpindi with average posting tenure of 6.14 months, eight Gurjanwala RPOs with 5.2 months average tenure, six Multan RPOs with 7.33 months, nine Sheikhupura RPOs with 4.56 months, six Sahiwal RPOs with 7.33 months, seven Sargodha RPOs with 6.16 months, six Bahawalpur RPOs with 7.33 months and five DG Khan RPOs with average nine months.

Similar is the case with the CPOs who were posted across Punjab. The record stated that average posting period of SHOs in Lahore was recorded three months while in the rest of Punjab 2.89 months.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2022