Delayed: 3,000 cases pending with police since January

While police blame over work in the delay of completing investigation, lawyers say it is because of the investigation officers’ negligence and delaying tactics.

Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and the Supreme Court orders on the subject require investigation officers to submit a challan before the competent court of trial with details of the case and the criminal offenses against the nominees in the first information report. This, the law says, has to be done within 14 days.

Explaining the law, Advocate Chaudhry Abdul Majeed told The Express Tribune that if for some reason the investigation cannot be completed within 14 days, the investigation officer is required to submit the incomplete challan and seek more time from the court. The court, in any case, had to be informed with the updates in the case, he added.

Advocate Mian Muhammad Nasir, a senior lawyer at the sessions court, said each police official should work in the investigation wing for at least three years. They, he said, leave “too soon” to apply for the post of a station house officer thus transferring their pending cases to new investigation officers.

“This is one of the major reasons in the delay of completing investigation,” he said.

Senior Superintendent of Police (Investigation) Nafees Gohar said that show causes notices had been sent to investigations officers who had not submitted the challans and follow-ups on the cases assigned to them in the stipulated time. He said the department had issued instructions for an officer not to be assigned more than three cases at a time. He said currently, 30 to 40 cases were being assigned to an officer each. This, he added, slowed their progress. He said that strict action would be taken against those found to have been deliberately delaying the investigation.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2013.