Minister for Horticulture, Law, Justice & Parliamentary Affairs, Syed Basharat Ahmed Bukhari on Wednesday direct the legal counsels, to provide district and year wise “details of criminal cases” to the department of law at an earliest.

Bukhari made his remarks during a high-level meeting called to review the status of criminal cases before different courts, and directed the public prosecutors and police officers to present the facts of the criminal cases with due diligence.

Bukhari directed the concerned to ensure that all the groundwork related to the cases is properly done so that guilty do not go scot free.

Saying that appeals/ revisions should be done within a given period, the Law Minister asked the participants that any reference beyond limitation shall not be entertained unless it is supported by cogent reasons for the delay.

To ensure the appearance of official witnesses in the courts, Bukhari asked the police officials to include personal identification and mobile numbers as part of challan so that there is no difficulty in notifying witnesses about the date of hearing.

The meeting also decided that department of Law, Justice and Parliamentary affairs will provide the necessary staff to the public prosecutors.

He further directed the participants to take steps for the vacation of stay where High Court has ordered a stay for investigation/ trial.

He also directed the DGP to prepare a proposal for engaging retired police officers as ‘Pairvi officers’ to follow criminal cases along with criteria for engagement. He was also asked to provide an action taken report regarding their police officials who have failed to perform their duties resulting in failure of criminal cases.

“DGP shall also explore the feasibility of posting investigating officers with a legal background,” Minister said in the meeting.

The meeting also decided that in order to obviate delay in filing appeals/ revisions concerned police stations will directly approach Law Department for necessary action.

Bukhari also directed that all prosecutors shall inform Law department, office of Advocate General and Director General of Police about the details of applications filed against the witnesses who have resoled from their statements recorded under section 164A Code of Criminal procedure within seven days.

The meeting was attended by Minister of State for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Ajay Nanda, Advocate General Jehangir Iqbal Ganie, Principal Secretary Home R K Goyal, DGP Dr S P Vaid, Secretary Law Abdul Majeed Bhat, IGP Kashmir SP Pani, DIG CRK, Director prosecution, officers of Law Department, law officers representing the state in High Court, Public Prosecutors, Chief Prosecuting Officers of Kashmir.