The Sindh High Court (SHC) questioned on Tuesday the maintainability of a constitutional petition against the removal of the Sindh Police IG Iqbal Mehmood by the provincial government, allegedly on ‘political grounds.’
Headed by Justice Munib Akhtar, the division bench put off the hearing till July 24 when the lawyers would make the arguments.
The petition was filed by a civil rights campaigner, Rana Faizul Hasan, who is also general secretary of the United Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
Naming the chief secretary as respondent, the petitioner submitted that the provincial government has surrendered the services of IGP Iqbal Mehmood to the federal government despite the fact that he was appointed only two months ago, after the retirement of former IGP Shahid Nadeem Baloch.
The superior courts had passed directions against the ‘frequent’ transfers and postings of police officers, he argued, referring to the orders passed by the Supreme Court in the suo motu case relating to violence in Karachi.
He alleged that the Sindh government has surrendered the services of IGP Mehmood just to appoint its favourite person on the IGP slot.
The petitioner claimed that move to surrender Mehmood’s services was ‘politically motivated as he had reportedly been victimised for not obliging the controversial orders of influential personalities regarding the procurement of arms, ammunition and APCs.’
Hasan said that the Sindh government had been insisting to appoint Fayyaz Leghari as the Sindh IGP, who had been removed on the direction of the Supreme Court after the Abbas Town bomb blast.
He maintained that the law and order situation in the city was improving as the ongoing targeted operation jointly launched by the Rangers and the police was heading in the right direction and the reshuffling of IGP on political grounds would damage the targeted operation against the terrorists and criminals.
The court was pleaded to restrain the authorities from handing over the services of Iqbal Mehmood to the federal government and set aside the notification, if issued in this regard.
When the matter came up for hearing on Tuesday, the two judges directed the petitioner to first satisfy the court on the question whether the plea was maintainable for hearing or not.
The hearing was therefore adjourned till July 24 to enable the lawyer to prepare and make arguments on the next date of hearing.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 9th, 2014.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ