PESHAWAR, May 16: Police have been violating provisions of the Constitution and Criminal Procedure Code (CrCP) by keeping accused persons in detention without producing them before the court concerned , legal experts claimed here.

Under the Constitution and the CrPC it is binding on the police to produce an arrested person before a magistrate within 24 hours of his or her arrest. It is learnt that the local police had not been following these provisions and have been keeping detainees for more than 24 hours even in various cases the accused are kept for many days without producing them before the court.

According to the information, the Peshawar District and Sessions Judge Hayat Ali Shah has decided 138 habeas corpus petitions during the last two years. These 138 cases are apart from the habeas corpus petitions decided by the Peshawar High Court during the same period.

The district judge was delegated powers under Section 491 of the CrPC by the Peshawar High Court in 2002 for dealing with habeas corpus petitions. The district judge started entertaining habeas corpus petition in June 2002.

Local lawyers told Dawn that previously the district judge had no such powers and under Section 491 of CrPC only the high court was empowered to issue direction of the nature of a habeas corpus.

On Feb 9, 2002, the federal government promulgated ordinance No VIII of 2002 through which amendments were made in the said section and now the high court could authorize the district and sessions judge and an additional district and sessions judge to deal with habeas corpus cases.

The lawyers dealing with cases of habeas corpus said that the local police were well-trained in saving their skins in such like cases. Normally, after filing of a habeas corpus petition the court deputes a bailiff for visiting the police station concerned to ascertain whether a detainee is in illegal detention or not.

However, in different cases the police often come to know about filing of these petitions and they used to shift a detainee to any other police station. In some of the decided cases no sooner had the police come to know about the filing of a petition, they used to book the detainee in any of the untraced cases registered with them and rush the detainee to the court of judicial magistrate for getting police custody legalized.

Once the police shows the presence of a detainee arrested in connection with any offence these habeas corpus petitions become infructuous and the court has no other option but to dispose it of, the lawyers claimed.

Under Article 10 of the Constitution every person who is arrested and detained in custody shall be produced before a magistrate with in a period of 24 hours of such arrest, excluding the time necessary for the journey from the place of arrest to the court.