PESHAWAR:
Courts orders against shoulder promotions seem to have made little impact on the Peshawar police, which recently promoted 23 officers in the same manner.
The Supreme Court had banned shoulder promotions to restore the merit system, following which the IGP had given written orders against the practice on March 16. But only three days after the IGP’s orders, an assistant sub-inspector (ASI), Manzoor Ali Shah, was given a shoulder promotion.
Shoulder promotion is the name given in police parlance to the practice of promoting a police officer to the next rank by his superior officer, without adhering to the regular procedure.
An official of the police, requesting not to be named, told The Express Tribune that Manzoor was an assistant sub-inspector who was first promoted to inspector level and then to DSP of the Saddar Circle Police Station.
The police officer also said that currently there are SPs working in the district who were initially junior officers. Similarly, there are 12 officers working as DSPs who were shoulder promoted from the position of sub-inspector.
Some police officers granted shoulder promotions have a stained reputation and cases are pending against them in the Peshawar High Court.
Shoulder promotion has acceptably been part of the police in the country, but increasing corruption and lack of experience found in the officers thus promoted led the Supreme Court to ban the practice.
The ban was intended to preserve the already endangered merit system, especially for a job like policing in the country.
The spokesperson for the IGP has confirmed that such orders were given along with strict directives to DIGs to abide by them. However, he said the promotions were a necessity.
“Our province is desperately short of officers and the federal government is unwilling to provide us more ASPs, despite repeated demands. The police department had to tackle the problem by giving shoulder promotions to junior officers.”
He further said that most of the DSPs had shortcomings in their ACRs so they could not be promoted on the basis of seniority.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 12th, 2012.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ