LAHORE:
The Bahawalpur bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday issued a set of guidelines to ensure proper maintenance of police records when obtaining remand for accused individuals.
This development came after a petition was filed in court against police officials’ negligence.
Justice Muhammad Tariq Nadeem directed that a copy of this order be sent to the Inspector General of Police (Punjab), the Director General of the Anti-Corruption Establishment (Punjab), and the Director General of the FIA, with instructions to establish a proper mechanism based on the guidelines outlined below:
1. A case diary should include the First Infomation Report (FIR) number and serial number at the bottom of the page.
2. There should be a register of the case diary, duly signed by the SHO at the time of issuing papers.
3. Police departments should maintain and provide a case diary register with serial numbers allocated to all police stations in the district.
4. Serial numbers of case diaries should be mentioned on the reverse of the FIR along with entries in the Roznamcha.
5. The format of the remand paper should adhere to the police rules and should include the serial number of the case diary indicating the arrest of the accused by the Investigating Officer.
6. Both interim and final reports under section 173 Cr.P.C. submitted by the police should indicate the serial numbers of the papers used for the case diary by the Investigating Officer.
7. A copy of the case diary record should be sent to the concerned Mohafiz Office within 24 hours.
The court order stated that authorities should ensure proper implementation of the aforementioned directions and guidelines within three months of receiving a certified copy of this order. The bench further stated that a notification should be sent to the court about the new changes through the Deputy Registrar.
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Justice Nadeem issued these guidelines during the hearing of a habeas corpus petition in which police officials had demonstrated negligence in proving the arrest of an individual who had been unlawfully detained.
The court gave an order to the DPO, Bahawalpur to file an FIR against three officials; SHO Nusrat, officer Muhammad Shabbir and the Moharrar of Musafir Khana Police Station.
“They are being accused of not following the directions given by the court in a case called ‘Qari Muhammad Atta Ullah vs. District Police Officer Sialkot and another,’ which was reported in 2022,” he said.
Petition
The petitioner, Nasreen Bibi, had sought the recovery of her sons, Muhammad Saleem and Ali Raza, from the illegal custody of the Bahawalpur police officials.
The petition was filed on September 6 and was heard by the court a day later as an urgent case. Following the issuance of an order for the production of the detainees before court, their arrest was recorded on September 7, at 11:00am.
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Justice Nadeem found several issues with the FIR. The initial report only accused one person, Raza, and didn’t mention Saleem. The report stated that witnesses later said they forgot to mention the latter’s involvement.
The judge suspected that this was just an excuse to arrest Saleem without strong evidence.
He also highlighted problems with how the police handled the case; the suspects were supposed to be brought to court the day after their arrest, but they were presented on the same day and the judge who allowed their further detention didn’t make a good decision.
Furthermore, the judge stated that the police used loose sheets of paper instead of the proper form. “These papers seemed easy to change,” he said.
As a result, Justice Nadeem had decided to cancel the order to keep Saleem and Raza in custody. This decision was based on legal authority and means they should be released. The judge also recommended that the police improve their record-keeping practices in the future.
