Deputy Prosecutors: LHC orders postings within 3 months

LAHORE:  

The Lahore High Court on Thursday directed the Punjab chief secretary to decide over the posting of deputy public prosecutors within three months. These slots have been lying vacant for long, the court observed.  Advocate Javed Imran Ranjha filed a writ petition, pleading that 45 out of 68 sanctioned posts had been lying vacant for over a year. He said progress pending before the courts came to a standstill due to the unavailability of deputy prosecutors.



The lawyer asked the court to order the government to fill the vacancies of deputy prosecutors without further delay. Justice Shujaat Ali Khan disposed of the petition and directed the chief secretary to resolve the matter within three months. Last month, a deputy district public prosecutor (DDPP) was removed from an anti-terrorism court (ATC) after he allegedly asked an under-trial Christian accused to embrace Islam to secure bail in a lynching case. Shah reportedly asked the 42 under-trial Christians to embrace Islam after March 28 hearing of the case about lynching of two Muslim bystanders in the wake of suicide attacks outside two churches in Lahore’s Christian-dominated Youhanabad area in March 2015.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2017.