KP govt to abolish Directorate of Public Safety & Police Complaints

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to abolish the Directorate of Public Safety and Police Complaint Commission and send its staff to the surplus pool of the Establishment Department as the Police Act 2017 has no provision for such bodies.

The Home and Tribal Affairs (TAs) Department has already submitted a summary to this effect to the chief minister seeking the abolition of the Directorate of Public Safety and Police Complaint Commission.

The Public Safety and Police Complaints Commissions were established to put in place an effective oversight on the police department as envisaged in the Police Order 2002.

To provide secretariat support services to these commissions a Directorate of Provincial and District Public Safety and Police Complaints Commission was established. An additional secretary in the Home and Tribal Affairs Department has been heading it since January 30, 2005. The Directorate is not authorized to exercise any financial powers as reflected in the Provincial Rules of Business.

However, since the enactment of the Police Act 2017, the provincial government has been facing confusion due to the ambiguities in the law about these oversight bodies.

The posts of the officers and staff have been reflected in the budget book irrespective of the mention of directorate or secretariat. The Directorate of Public Safety and Police Complaints Commission is provided budget through Home and Tribal Affairs Department.

The Home and Tribal Affairs Department submitted a summary to the chief minister in December 2016 saying that there is a lot of confusion about the manner in which these commissions will be functioning under the Police Act 2017.

It pointed out that the situation would attain further gravity in the absence of these bodies as they provide the only oversight mechanism for cognizance in the complaints and the cases related to the performance of the police.

It said that there is also ambiguity as to how these commissions proposed in Police Act 2017 would be connected to the provincial government.

To cope with the anomalies in the Police Act 2017 with regard to the Public Safety and Police Complaints Commission, the Home and Tribal Affairs Department proposed in the summary to the chief minister that the Directorate should be properly renamed and reflected in the Provincial Rules of Business as an attached department to the Home and Tribal Affairs Department. The Law and Parliamentary Affairs Department’s opinion was also sought in this regard.

However, the Law Department argued that the Police Act 2017 provides the composition of the Provincial and District Safety Commission consisting of 13 and 15 members, respectively. As these bodies will have a certain period of appointment which would not be considered as permanent employees, these could not be declared as an attached department of Home and Tribal Affairs Department. It also advised the Home Department to resubmit a summary to the competent authority in this regard.

The Home and Tribal Affairs Department in its summary submitted on July 19 to the chief minister took the position that no protection has been provided to the existing staff of the directorate and Public Safety and Police Complaints Commission in line with requirements of sections 62(2), 64 (2), 65 (2) and 71(2) of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police Act 2017.

It sought approval to declare as surplus the existing staff of the Directorate and commissions at all levels and direct them to report to the Establishment Department. It also sought the handing over of the assets of the Directorate to the Home Department.

This situation has led to uncertainty among the 164 trained staff, who wrote to the chief minister on July 21 to look into the matter.

They informed the chief minister that the abolition of these commissions and Directorate will also abolish the oversight of the provincial government on the police performance. Consequently, the public will also have no means for redressal of their grievances.

They said in the letter that the oversight mechanism provided in the Police Act 2017 is superficial, ineffective and a burden on the provincial exchequer.