KARACHI: Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali of the Supreme Court, who is also the monitoring judge of the anti-terrorism courts in Sindh, directed the city police chief on Saturday to ensure the presence of investigation officers and witnesses for prosecution in the ATCs during trials.

Official sources told Dawn that the SC judge gave the direction while presiding over a quarterly meeting to review the performance of the ATCs in the province.

They said that he also directed the ATC judges to expedite the disposal of the cases pending before them.

The sources said that Justice Jamali expressed extreme displeasure over the absence of the home secretary, as the additional home secretary attended the meeting on the latter’s behalf.

They said that the monitoring judge of the ATCs also directed the additional home secretary and other officials to make elaborate efforts for the implementation of the witness protection programme.

The sources said that the meeting was of the view that a model court with infrastructural facilities such as video recording of the witnesses’ depositions should be established.

The meeting was also attended by ATC judges in Karachi, judges in charge of the Sindh High Court for the ATCs Justices Munib Akhtar and Mohammed Ali Mazhar and member inspection team II Judge Abdullah Channa.

The sources said that the participants discussed at length the performance of police investigators and prosecutors appearing in the ATCs as several accused in cases of heinous crimes were acquitted mainly due to defective investigations by the police and poor prosecution by prosecutors.

The sources said that the monitoring judge directed the provincial authorities to immediately provide infrastructural facilities for all ATCs in the province.

Published in Dawn, August 31st , 2014