A full bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday has directed the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to submit an explanation by May 28 reasoning why the grade-19 officers were not appointed as District Police Officers (DPOs), while 17 DPOs of grade-18 were appointed in contrary to the Police Order 2002.
The bench headed by Justice M Bilal Khan issued these directives while hearing various identical petitions challenging law and order situation in the province. Following court directives, the IGP and Home Secretary appeared before the court to inform about the measures they had taken to implement the court order to make all appointments of police officers in the province according to the Police Order.
On court query IGP submitted that total 17 DPOs were appointed throughout the province contrary to the Police Order. At this Justice Bilal observed with surprise that in half of the province DPOs were functioning against the Police Order. According to the Police Order, a DPO should be a grade-19 officer but the IGP told that those DPOs were of grade-18.
Therefore, the court ordered the IGP to make all appointments of DPOs according to the Police Order 2002 otherwise, all such posts will be declared illegal. The IGP submitted in the court that grade-18 officers were appointed as DPOs because of the non-availability of grade-19 officers. On a question by the court that who had appointed these officers by violating the court order, the IGP admitted appointing some of the DPOs while according to him, Punjab government appointed some.
The bench asked the IGP that why he overlooked court directives and made the appointments in violation of Police Order, the IGP argued that he thought he would inform the court later about the appointments. However, the judge asked told him that he should have sought court permission before appointing these officers.
Replying to the court, the IGP said there were grade-19 officers but some of them had no aptitude for the posts, some have expressed inability to be posted as DPOs and the third category was of the officers, whom the police department itself did not consider suitable for the post. The court, after the argument, ordered the IGP to submit details of such officers before the court during next hearing.
Further, it ordered the IGP not to make any posting or appointment in police department against the Police Order 2002. The bench also directed the home secretary to inform the court about the steps taken by the provincial and federal government in this regard.