MUHAMMAD TARIQ vs S.H.O. POLICE STATION SADDAR JAMPUR, DISTRICT

ORDER

1. Vide order dated 23.11.2018, subject to deposit of Rs,2,000/- as security a Bailiff of this Court was deputed to recover the detenues, namely, Mola Bakhsh, Rashid, Muhammad Fraz, Muhammad Saifal and Muhammad Hanif and to produce them before this Court on 26.11.2018. On 26.11.2018, the Bailiff produced all the alleged detenues before the Court on 27.11.2018 and in his report the Bailiff submitted that when he checked Roznarncha Front Desk he found that the detenues were arrested vide Rapt No, 7, dated 23.11.2018 at 8:40 a.m. but no manual Roznamcha was available with the police where the arrest of the detenues had to be recorded as per Police Rules. When asked to the concerned Investigating Officer as to why did he not enter the arrest of the detenues in the manually maintained Roznamcha at Police Station he badly failed to offer any explanation rather he remained mum.

2. This Court took serious notice of this aspect and directed the Law Officer to render assistance as to what is the validity behind such prevailing practice in the Police Stations and under what authority the entries in Roznamcha have been dispensed with and this has been converted into the preparation of Roznamcha on online process.

3. The detenues were directed to be lodged at Police Station Cantt. Multan. On 27.11.2018, R.P.O. Multan was directed to appear Before the Court and explain the reasons for such change. Today i,e, 28.11.2018 he has, appeared before the Court and candidly denied that any instruction has been issued to any Police Station whereby they had been stopped to maintain daily diary register, i,e, Roznamcha manually. However, the learned Law Officer has produced a copy of Notification dated 15.12,2017 whereby the amendment has been made in Rules 22.3 and 22.4 of Chapter XXII of Police Rules, 1934 and stated that due to such amendments the computerized entries are started in Police Stations. The relevant amendments are reproduced as under:-- 22.3 Station Clerk:- (1) A Station Clerk shall:

(a) be a literate head constable or IT literate officer ................................

4. In rule 22.4 for clause (a), the following shall be substituted

(a) He shall:

(i) maintain hard as well as soft copy (electronic copy) of the registers as per order of the Provincial Police Officer; ...................

5. In the above amendment it was made mandatory at police station to maintain hard as well as soft copy of the Registers as per order of the Provincial Police Officer and nowhere any absolute bar is provided to manually maintain the police registers.

2. Tariq Tareen, S.I. Investigating Officer of case F.I.R. No, 444 of 2018, dated 22.11.2018, registered under Sections 380/215, PPC, registered at Police Station Saddar Jampur, who has appeared in the company of Fiaz ul Haq, Inspector, S.H.O. states that so far investigation conducted by him, the case against the detenues appears to be a fake one and he will either get the detenues discharged from the case or will prepare a cancellation report of the same. He will do the same as per law. Since the detenues are not required by the police, - therefore, they are set at liberty forthwith. Since the detenues are released; this petition is disposed of. The security amount of Rs,2,000/- deposited by the petitioner be refunded to him.

3. Before parting with this order, I want to observe that the procedure which is apparently being adopted at Police Stations after introducing online system is not only violative to Police Rules, 1934, but also an attempt to put cover on misdeeds of Officers/officials of Police Stations.

6. No doubt in the present days of life the computer is a great blessing and after initial invention of the same, it was modernized day by day and its use was made applicable for multi purposes.

7. Visualizing the requirement of offices, different softwares/programs were developed, whereby official record was computerized and now the computer is being used almost in every office without any impunity. Now a days data of different institutions is being connected to main server.

8. Perhaps the purpose of this effort is to facilitate the general public so that a common person of the society may have access to different datas for getting first hand knowledge in every sphere of life.

9. In this scenario, it can safely be presumed that the purpose of computerizing the police stations and connecting them with online system is to facilitate the public so that wrong done to any person is remedied and his grievance is redressed immediately, naturally because if any person feels danger to his life or liberty, he would rush to police station.

10. But, presently it has been noticed with great concern that after launching online system in police stations there are rampant complaints relating to different police stations for the reason that manual police registers are not being maintained at all. Even there are some report is that some police officers had laid off their hands from manual entries after online entering the data in the computer for some time or even in some cases after some days. It means that before making the data online they have sufficient time to make changes in the data for some ulterior motive and they can easily cover their misdeeds/wrongs committed by them. Moreover', the data available in the computers is not fully secured and it is vulnerable due to different factors. Presently it is common practice that due to different virus attacks data can, easily be destroyed and the online data may also become victim of different hackers who have expertise in hacking the data and now a days it has become a global problem that hackers hack different websites and destroy data. In order to cope with this situation internationally cyber laws are being promulgated and in our own country cyber laws are coming into force.

11. Now it is to be seen as to what safety measures can be adopted to secure the data of different police stations. There is no wrong in making the data of police stations online so that the public may have easy access to the record of police stations but at the same time we have to ensure safety of data at police stations. Before making any entry in the computer maintained at police station every movement/ happening of police station must be entered in the roznamcha of police station. If any Investigating Officer writes police diary in the computer himself or gets it written through same I.T. literate person, before starting it he must write this fact in the roznamcha and after completing the police diary he should immediately take its print/hardcopy and maintain it in the relevant register. After taking the hard copy he should immediately write this fact in the roznamcha while mentioning the date and time. Every register of the police station as required under Police Rules, 1934 should be maintained properly before making the computer data online.

12. In view of the above, the Inspector General of Police of the Province is directed to ensure that in all the police stations of province all the manual registers of police stations are maintained properly without any delay. If any default is committed at any police station he should take stern action against the concerned police officials/Officers.