The Peshawar High Court on Friday declared unconstitutional key amendments introduced through the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police (Amendment) Act, 2024, restoring the operational independence of the provincial police force.
\nA Division Bench comprising Chief Justice S. M. Attique Shah and Justice Muhammad Ijaz Khan, while deciding Writ Petition No. 7810-P of 2025 (Barrister Muhammad Yousaf Khan vs Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and others), invalidated the amendments made to the KP Police Act, 2017.
\nThe Court struck down provisions that made postings of senior police officers (BS-18 and above) subject to the approval of the Chief Minister and removed the statutory authority of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to appoint field commanders.
\nThe bench held that these changes unconstitutionally undermined the operational autonomy essential for a professional police service and effectively reduced the police to an instrument of political expediency rather than an institution governed by law.
\nThe judgment emphasized that under the constitutional scheme, the executive\u2019s role of \u201csuperintendence\u201d over the police is limited strictly to broad policy guidance and oversight. Day-to-day administration including postings, transfers, and internal management, must remain exclusively with the IGP to preserve a coherent chain of command, institutional discipline, and meaningful leadership.
\nThe court further observed that a depoliticized and functionally autonomous police force is not merely an administrative preference but a constitutional necessity for the protection of fundamental rights, particularly the rights to life (Article 9), fair trial (Article 10A), and equality (Article 25). These rights, the court noted, are directly jeopardized when field command depends on political approval.
\nApplying the doctrine of \u201creading down,\u201d the bench held that the Chief Minister\u2019s power to issue \u201cdirections\u201d must be confined to policy matters and cannot extend to individual operational decisions or personnel postings.
\nAny executive attempt to bypass the IGP in controlling field commanders, the court ruled, fractures the command structure and institutionalizes political dependency within the police.
\nReaffirming the principle of police independence, the judgment invoked the celebrated Blackburn formulation, reiterating that responsibility for law enforcement rests with the police chief, who is \u201canswerable to the law and to the law alone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Peshawar High Court on Friday declared unconstitutional key amendments introduced through the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police (Amendment) Act, 2024, restoring the operational independence of the provincial police force. A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice S. M. Attique Shah and Justice Muhammad Ijaz Khan, while deciding Writ Petition No. 7810-P of 2025 (Barrister Muhammad Yousaf Khan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345315,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-529837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-peshawar"},"yoast_head":"\n