|
STRENGTHENING OF INSTITUTIONS?
Punjab sacks 487 prosecutors
Amir Nafees
LAHORE: Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan said Friday that the services of 487 officers of the prosecution department had been terminated. "The decision has been made purely on merit in the light of the directions of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif," he told a news conference here at the committee room of the Punjab Assembly. He said that those being terminated were included 3 assistant prosecutors-general, 18 deputy prosecutors-general, 83 deputy district prosecutors and 383 assistant deputy and public prosecutors. He said that presently 2000 staffers were working on regular while 900 on contract basis. He said that the terminated ones were working on contract basis.
He said that the former rulers provided lucrative salaries to the staffers. He said Rs 200,000 was being paid to prosecutor general, Rs 150,000 to additional prosecutor general, 75,000 deputy prosecutor general and even the public prosecutors were getting Rs 65,000 per month as salary. He said that the Punjab CM had made it clear that all the jobs being vacated after termination should be filled through the Public Service Commission to ensure that the fresh appointments be made on merit.
He said that in order to eliminate bad elements from the judiciary, the provincial government had requested the Lahore High Court (LHC) chief justice to form a committee and take notice of the situation.
When asked that the PML-N did not own the PCO judges, Rana said that the government did so in the best interest of the masses. He also said that the government has already increased 3 times judicial allowances of the judicial officers so that they could perform well.
He said that the government aimed to provide immediate justice to the people. When the judicial system will be made effective many problems would automatically be resolved, he added. He said that Shahbaz had formed a committee to look into the affairs relating to the police department. Bad elements from the department would also be removed to make it effective. He said that the government would also increase salaries and provide facilities to the police.
About the anti-corruption department, he said that the CM also directed to fill all the vacant vacancies of the department, no matter if the services of the private men available in the market were hired to make the department effective.
He said that the government had adopted Zero Tolerance Policy against the corrupt officers. He said that the government had focused on police, anti-corruption and prosecution departments to make them effective so that relief could be ensured to people in real sense.
He said that Musharraf's team had badly damaged the national image abroad and the government should try its best to dispel this image. He said that the PML-N would support all the decisions made in the best interest of the country and the people. About the Punjab governor's hard stance for the PML-N, Sanaullah said that the governor being representative of the federal government should play impartial role.
|