SHC issues show-cause notices to secretaries for non-appointment of officers in shelter homes

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has issued show-cause notices to the secretaries of the women development and home departments for non-appointment of female protection officers and psychologists in women shelter homes.

Hearing an application with regard to women shelter homes, a single bench of the SHC comprising Justice Salahuddin Panhwar took exception to non-appointment of women protection officers and psychologists in the shelter homes despite court directions.

The deputy finance secretary submitted that the women development and home departments had not approached the finance department in that regard and they had not received any proposal to comply with the court orders.

The SHC observed that such a statement was quite surprising because the departments, once they were issued court orders, had to take steps for compliance. The bench observed that the member inspection team-II report also reflected that those authorities were directed repeatedly but they had not paid any heed to the court directions.

The high court issued show-cause notice to the women development secretary and the home secretary and directed them to appear in person with proposals for compliance with court orders. It also directed that the MIT-II will also appear along with record so as to assist the court.

The bench observed that it had also come on record that the Darul Amans (shelter homes) were domain of the women development department. It observed that the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act 2013 stipulated appointments of women protection officers and psychologists in every district separately and those psychologists shall be at the disposal of the magistrate concerned, and officers of the women development department and SSP.

The high court also ordered the registration of a criminal case against senior clerk of a shelter home, who was found involved in commission of rape offence with inmates of shelter home in a judicial inquiry conducted by a district and sessions judge.

The SHC directed that the investigation officer shall examine the acts and omission of then director social welfare Sukkur and secretary social welfare department if constituting abetment shall be tried as such. The bench directed the Sukkur DIG and Sukkur sessions judge to file a compliance report.

The high court observed that the department must dare to own mistakes, failures and if such mistakes and failures resulted in criminal offences, the department should not hesitate to bring the law into motion.

The high court observed that coercive actions should not be avoided if they were permissible by the law because if such action succeeded in creating deterrence for others, it served

its purpose.