Cases registered under PECA are facing delays, mismanagement: activists

'First case under the act has remained sub judice even after three years of the registration of the FIR'

KARACHI: Bolo Bhi co-founder and Director Farieha Aziz, speaking at a session on Friday, highlighted that The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 (PECA), which was introduced to control cybercrime, provide protection to women and curb hate speech, has not been used to serve the intended purposes.

Addressing a session titled 'A Three-Year Review of PECA', held at the Centre of Excellence in Journalism, Aziz said that the first case which was registered under the act has remained sub judice even after three years of the registration of the FIR.

Briefing the attendees of the session on the loopholes of the Act, a lawyer and research associate at Bolo Bhi, Shumaila Shahani, said that cases registered under the Act have been "delayed, misused and neglected by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA)." She shared the status of various under-trial cases, registered under PECA, in Karachi, and revealed that seven persons accused in the cases are in jail, 32 are out on bail, eight have been acquitted, one person has been convicted and two have been declared absconders.

The lawyer said that the procedure for registering cases under PECA is quite vague. Instead of registering PECA cases only under a specific law, pertaining to crimes in online space and electronic media, in most instances, additional sections of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) are added to the FIR, she explained. Further illustrating the point, she said that once, Section 500 [pertaining to punishment for defamation] of the PPC was included in a case which was initially registered under Sections 20 [defamation] and 21 [sexual harassment] of PECA. Occasionally, Sections 419 [punishment for cheating by personation] and 109 [punishment of abetment] of the PPC are included in cases registered under PECA, she added.

Addition of PPC sections complicates the trial procedure because cases of similar nature are tried at different courts, she said, adding that "Few cases are under-trial in sessions court while others in magistrate court."

Shahani also reflected that in the past, allocation of cases to the courts too used to be quite cumbersome.

"Until March 2017, cases reported under PECA were randomly allocated as no specific courts had been set up or identified to deal with them," she said, adding that this changed after March 2017, when PECA jurisdiction was defined.

According to Shahani, at times the FIA tries to act as a mediator between the complainant and the accused, giving the accused a chance to reach a compromise with the complainant and resolve the case in the initial stages. She said that in some cases, after the FIR is registered, FIA even pressurises the complainant to sign a no-objection certificate, stating that the complainant will have no objection if the accused is granted bail, to facilitate the accused.

Speaking with respect to delay in case proceedings, the lawyer outlined two reasons for the delay. "Currently, the FIA has a limited number of prosecutors and often case properties are not produced before the court," she said. Shahani also pointed out that delay in the production of case properties is often justified on the pretext of properties being sent to a forensic lab and reports being prepared.

Besides highlighting mismanagement in the investigation process, she also underlined FIA's negligence in dealing with cases registered under PECA. "The investigation agency's negligence was evident during the proceedings of a case, hearing for which was adjourned 11 times because police lost the evidence file," Shahani said.

Talking about the case, which was registered against sexual harassment under PECA in September, 2016, she said that the case remained sub judice for a long time, during which, even the period of the under-trial sentence of three-year imprisonment awarded to the accused ended.

"Evidence file of the case was lost while it was under trial at the court. However, after two and a half years, evidences were submitted in the high court," she said.

The lawyer informed the attendees of the seminar that so far 11 cases registered under PECA have been disposed of, of which accused were acquitted on merit in five cases, parties reached a compromise in two cases, two cases were disposed of due to lack of evidence and in two cases, the accused were acquitted because they were absconders.

Speaking on the occasion, Shahani also criticised the online portal of PECA which does not provide any registration number to complainant. "Besides, accused is also not informed of the charges levelled against him or her in the case registered under PECA. Only a standard letter is issued, asking the person to report at FIA's office with relevant documents, but the accusation is not defined" she elaborated.

Concluding the session, Shahani stressed the need for training of judicial officers to make the law and its implementation effective.

During the discussion, the case of veteran journalist Shahzeb Jillani was also discussed.  The session was attended by journalists, lawyers and the complainant of the first cases registered under PECA.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20^th, 2019.