Khattak said the ordinance had given legal cover to the outsourcing of test conduction for recruitments. PHOTO: EXPRESS
The provincial government is losing time as the Police Ordinance 2016, which will expire after two weeks, cannot be extended through a resolution of the K-P Assembly, which has already given one extension to the ordinance.
The K-P Assembly’s Select Committee held its second meeting on the bill last Wednesday with Chief Minister Pervez Khattak in the chair. However, objections on the bill could not be removed.
“The government has to conclude the proposed amendments in the bill before the expiry of the extended period of the ordinance and then summon an assembly session to pass the bill; otherwise, it will expire and the Police Order 2002 will get implemented in K-P,” said an official privy to the matter.
“The government is left with two options: to make drastic changes in the bill to satisfy all the movers who have submitted amendments in the bill; or simply bulldoze it through the assembly,” he said.
A total of 16 lawmakers from both the opposition and treasury benches have moved more than 70 amendments in the bill and the CM has formed another subcommittee of the Select Committee under Shah Farman to rephrase the controversial Clauses 7, 14 and 72.
Clause 7 describes the constitution of the Police Establishment, Clause 14 defines the procedure for the posting of Inspector General Police (IGP) and Clause 72 defines the powers of the chief minister.
All the three clauses, according to officials, are controversial and they have been handed over to the Subcommittee of the Select Committee to be discussed and rephrased.
The next meeting of the Select Committee will be held on Tuesday [today] and the subcommittee will present its report in the meeting. “No one from the opposition and government side is in favour of the bill in its present state and the huge number of amendments proves this,” said the official.
The select committee has held its two meetings on the bill under the supervision of CM Khattak.
The committee has so far discussed 23 clauses of the bill and made interesting changes in its clause-15 which explains the term of office of the Provincial Police Officer (the IGP).
The provision that the K-P government has to record reasons for a premature transfer of the IGP has been removed by the committee and now the government can repatriate the IGP to federal government prematurely without any reasons.
Furthermore, the provision that the provincial government shall have to provide opportunity to IGP of being heard in person before his premature transfer has also been removed.
“This is strange. You want to remove a person without any reasons and without giving him an opportunity to defend his case,” said the official, criticising the changes.
The opposition members, however, welcomed these changes. The PPP’s lawmaker Fakhr Azam Wazir said, “The executive powers should be with the CM as per the Constitution and he should have the powers to remove the IGP. This is what we wanted to include in the bill.”
Commenting on the powers of the IG under the bill, the JUI-F lawmaker Noor Saleem Khan said, “Another full-fledged army was in the making”.
He said the IGP wanted the powers of an ex-officio secretary of the police department but the JUI-F objected to it as police is an attached department of the provincial home department.
“The IGP should have operational autonomy but the administrative and financial powers should be with the government as the government is responsible and answerable to the public, not the IGP,” Noor added.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 17th, 2017.
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