PESHAWAR: Around 100 police officials in seven districts of the province own public transport vehicles, National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa told the Peshawar High Court on Wednesday.
According to NAB Deputy Prosecutor General Mohammad Jamil Khan, these officials are from Peshawar, Kohat, Malakand, Haripur, Abbottabad, Lakki Marwat and Dera Ismail Khan.
He produced the report of the inquiry against policemen owning public transport vehicles before Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Asadullah Khan Chamkani and said NAB had been conducting inquiry against such officials in other districts of the province, too.
The bench directed NAB to produce complete list of vehicles owned by police officials, with the help of Motor Vehicle Registration Authority.
It observed that after receiving complete list, it would direct the government to take action against such officials under the Efficiency and Disciplinary Rules.
The bench also directed traffic police to depute specific number of officials for beginning crackdown on school buses fitted with CNG kits, observing they are a threat to the life of students.
The bench ruled that action should be taken in accordance with an earlier order of the court against public transport vehicles which were fitted with substandard CNG kits that were not in accordance with international standards.
The bench further directed the officials deputed by traffic police to check whether required number of fire extinguishers were installed in public transport vehicles as per mentioned in the Motor Vehicle Ordinance.
The court adjourned to Nov 26 the hearing of the case whose notice was taken by the chief justice suo moto last year after the government failed to implement directives issued by the high court on Nov 29, 2011, in a writ petition filed by the Human Rights Commission South Asia through its representative for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa/Fata and lawyer Abdus Samad Marwat.
In that petition, filed against charging of excessive fare by the CNG operated public transport vehicles, the high court had issued several directives to the Road Transport Authority for streamlining the affairs of the CNG-fitted public transport vehicles.
During the previous hearing, the court had directed NAB to conduct inquiry for tracing out police officials and bureaucrats carrying out transport business.
The bench had also ordered the Federal Board of Revenue that once those officials were traced, it should constitute a team for looking into whether those officials had paid proper tax and submitted their income tax returns and also to see whether they had declared the vehicles possessed by them.
It on Wednesday directed the traffic police to launch a constant campaign for checking the CNG-fitted vehicles as owners of those vehicles were habitual and they used to refit substandard kit after a few days of the removal of the earlier kit.
The chief justice observed that owners of school buses had also converted it to CNG and thus, putting potential threat to lives of students.
In the previous order, the court had ruled that each CNG-fitted public transport vehicles should be installed with fire extinguishers, including four extinguishers, in heavy vehicles and two in light vehicles to avoid accident.
It had further ordered to constitute special committees for checking CNG kits in the vehicles as they had mostly been installing substandard locally manufactured kits instead of foreign made kits due to which many accidents had taken place.
