CJ restores daily register at police stations

Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan has set aside an amendment made in Police Rules 1934 through which maintenance of handwritten daily register (roznamcha) in every police station had ended.

The province’s top judge also set aside the standard operating procedures (SOPs) initiated for maintaining computerised record in police stations rather than the previous roznamcha in which all activities were noted in writing.

"You are directed to restore the practice of maintaining roznamcha in police stations across Punjab within half an hour,” the chief justice told DIG Legal Jawad Dogar.

"You people initiated computerised system merely to hide your, faults and illegal acts," he remarked.

CJ Khan also mentioned the case of Abid Malhi, the main suspect of the Sialkot motorway gang rape case, saying police had been applauded over his arrest, while his family had claimed that they had handed him over to cops who were sleeping on the roof of their home.

“Police set the computerised system to show favourable results and tamper with the record more easily than the manual system," he remarked.

The chief justice was hearing a case pertaining to the registration of two first information reports (FIRs) against a man and his wife under section 9C of The Control of Narcotics Substances Act 1997. Two FIRs were registered with gap of only 15 minutes. The petitioner’s counsel Muhammad Ahsan Gondal sought release on bail of the woman, Asmat Perveen.

When the CJ asked why the police had stopped noting the activities in roznamcha, a law officer told the court that now the record was maintained on computer.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2020.