Sindh govt should decide if IGP stays or not, says Saeed Ghani
Earlier, SHC had ordered that IGP AD Khawaja will continue on his post till his due term
September 07, 2017
KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party’s Saeed Ghani remarked on Thursday that the Sindh government has the power to decide whether the incumbent Inspector General Police AD Khawaja should continue on his post or not.
“It seems as if Sindh is on another island where a different law is in place,” he said while reacting to Sindh High Court’s verdict which dismissed the provincial government's order to remove AD Khawaja and ordered that he will continue on his post till his due term.
Moreover, in its verdict, the court directed the federal government to draft rules regarding the tenure and appointment of the IG.
Ghani also claimed that no one praised the Sindh government when AD Khawaja was appointed as the inspector general.
Tackling criticism against the Sindh government after the recent spell of monsoon rains, Ghani said that Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar is responsible for the city’s drainage system. However, the mayor claims that he has no powers.
On May 30, a two-judge SHC bench, headed by Justice Muneeb Akhtar, had reserved its decision in the case challenging Khawaja's removal.
The court, on April 3, had dismissed the provincial government’s decision to remove the Sindh police chief after a group of activists approached the SHC challenging his controversial removal.
In its judgment on Thursday, the court also declared all postings and transfers carried out in the province after July 7 as illegal.
The judges observed that the complete command of the provincial police remains with the IG and that anyone found taking orders from elsewhere may be proceeded against by the police chief.
The court, termed farcical the “rapid turnover in, and bewildering rapidity with which, postings and transfers are made in the police force at all levels” and observes that this is wholly inimical to the stability of, and any meaningful performance by, the police.
The judgment also presses for an end to “outside interference, whether by the Provincial Government or any body or authority thereof or otherwise (including any minister of any rank)..”.
With regards to the sidelining of the provincial police chief, the court held that any attempt to sideline or marginalise the inspector general or circumvent him or to otherwise curtail his powers would be contrary to law.
“It could, among other things, expose any police officer concerned to appropriate disciplinary or other proceedings, whether by way of misconduct or otherwise,” the court observed, stating additionally that the command structure of the police hierarchy is clear: It flows from, to and through the IG. “There can be no autonomy of command, nor independence of operation without this.”
