IGP apologises to SHC for inconvenience caused by police failure to assist court

The Sindh inspector general of police (IGP) on Friday tendered an apology to the Sindh High Court (SHC) for inconvenience caused by acts of police officers who failed to comply with court orders despite repeated directions. He assured the high court that he would remain watchful to ensure implementation of court orders.

The assurance came in a bail matter, in which the SHC had earlier taken exception to the conduct of police investigation officers, SHOs and the prosecution department in criminal cases. The high court had directed the IGP and prosecutor general to explain their respective inaction and continuing defiance of court orders.

The Sindh IGP, Ghulam Nabi Memon, appeared before the SHC and submitted that the police had been told that officers nominated either from the IGP’s office or called by the courts would attend hearings in person and if there was any emergency, it would be brought into knowledge of the police chief through the DIG headquarters.

The SHC was informed that if the officer concerned was proceeding on leave, he would inform about it in writing in an application or proceeding report. The police chief submitted that the SP investigation West and his staff in the instant case did not follow the court orders in letter and spirit, which caused inconvenience to the court and embarrassment to the senior command of police. He said that due to such act of negligence, the SP had been removed from his post with explanation sought from him for further departmental action.

A single bench of the high court comprising Justice Omar Sial after taking the statement of the IGP on record observed that the comments of the police chief were self-explanatory. The bench observed that the IGP had assured that the police would improve their performance in the court-related matters in the future. The SHC directed its office to re-list the case on April 3 as an additional prosecutor general sought time to prepare his arguments.

It is pertinent to mention that the high court had observed in the case that investigation officers and SHOs had not been appearing in hearings of criminal cases for assistance required from them to decide the cases.

The high court had observed that investigation officers as well as SHOs were called absent in bail-related matters and the prosecutor general’s office also failed to assist the court in their absence. The SHC had observed that in most cases, the prosecution was unable to apprise the court about the facts of cases. The high court had observed that such non-assistance caused delay in disposal of the cases.

The bench had observed that several cases were taken up by the court where apathy on the part of the police had been even more pronounced as even after several dates having been given to the prosecution to procure the attendance of the investigation officers, no compliance was made.