Submission of challans abysmal in 2021
The Rawalpindi police’s performance remained abysmal in submitting complete challans in district courts in 2021.
In most cases, all 30 police stations across the district failed to submit fully complete challans within the 14-day stipulated time under Section 173 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPc).
The Rawalpindi police registered 31,956 cases from January 1 to November 30, and of them, investigation teams could only submit 8,881 complete challans to the courts. Due to this, the accused in several serious cases were able to get bail from the courts.
Investigative teams submit incomplete challans in courts to avoid being reprimanded by higher officials, and in the process, they drag the submission of final challans, which directly benefits the accused who obtain bail.
According to District Attorney Office (DAO) documents, the Sadiqabad police registered a total of 2,520 cases, the highest number of cases this year. However, the Sadiqabad police could submit complete challans of only 574 to courts.
The New Town police registered a total of 2,485 cases, the second-highest number of cases, but the police could submit only 556 final challans to courts.
The Women’s Police Station registered the lowest number of cases – only 13. Out of these, complete challans of nine cases were submitted to the courts. The Women Police Station submitted the highest number of complete challans as compared to other police stations.
Most of the challans filed by different police stations were related to gambling, alcohol, arms smuggling and drug peddling etc.
Meanwhile, the proportion of challans filed against serious crimes courts remained very low.
Punjab Bar Council members including Asad Abbasi, Masood Al Hassan Shah and Shaan Zeb Khan said that the stipulated time for submission of a complete challan should be extended from 14 days to one month. They said that the number of prosecution witnesses should also be reduced to cut the length of a trial. They said that there should be one prosecution witness for one trial. They said that as per modern requirements, audio, video, WhatsApp data, mobile number data and geofencing should also be presented and accepted as evidence.
The lawyers also called for setting up forensic laboratories in every district. On the other hand, investigation officers of various police stations told The Express Tribune that they often faced problems in investigating a murder, robbery, kidnapping for ransom, terrorism cases due to lack of resources.
They said that investigation officers have to travel to Lahore to get a forensic test in serious crimes and they have to bear all expenditures from their own pocket.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 2nd, 2022.