The Punjab government is to declare the office of prosecutor general a ‘special institution’ and grant the holder of the office enhanced powers and protocol equivalent to a provincial minister, The Express Tribune has learnt.
The government appointed Ashtar Ausaf Ali prosecutor general on contract on October 25. Ali has been the Sharif family lawyer for a long time and served as advocate general during Shahbaz Sharif’s previous reign as chief minister in the late 1990s, until the coup by General Pervez Musharraf.
Under the Rules of Business 2011, the prosecutor general’s office is attached to the Public Prosecution Department and is answerable to the department secretary in administrative and financial matters.
The Chief Minister’s Secretariat recently directed the Services and General Administration Department (S&GAD) to amend Schedule-I of the Rules of Business 2011 to declare the office a ‘special institution’.
The department has submitted a summary to this effect to the chief minister, an official said on the condition of anonymity.
He added that after the change, the prosecutor general would no longer be answerable to the Public Prosecution Department secretary. “He will be directly under the command of the chief minister,” he said.
Once it officially becomes a ‘special institution’, the office will be entitled to protocol equivalent to a provincial minister at all official meetings and functions.
The prosecutor general, earlier subordinate to a department secretary, will have greater protocol than the chief secretary, the head of the provincial bureaucracy.
The office had been vacant for over a year since the Pakistan Peoples Party split from the provincial coalition led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
The previous prosecutor general, Justice (retired) Syed Zahid Hussain Bokhari, was a PPP choice and quit the post when the coalition split.
There are only two other ‘special institutions’: the Provincial Assembly and the office of advocate general. The office of advocate general was elevated to that status last July.
It was previously attached to the Law Department. Advocate General Khawaja Harris is also a longtime Sharif ally.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 2nd, 2011.
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