The Supreme Court has reinstated Ghulam Mahmood Dogar as the CCPO of Lahore.

ISLAMABAD – The Pakistan Supreme Court halted a notice issued by the Punjab interim government to remove Lahore Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Ghulam Mahmood Dogar on Friday.

Dogar was reinstated as Lahore CCPO by a three-judge bench led by Justice Ijazul Ahsan and comprised of Justice Mazahar Ali Akbar Naqvi and Justice Muneeb Akhtar while ruling on a petition against his transfer.

During the hearing, the secretary of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) said that the Punjab government submitted an oral request to transfer Dogar on January 23, and that the ECP received a written application on January 24. According to the secretary, the electoral authority granted the request on February 6. According to Judge Muneeb, the ECP received an oral request, authorised it, and then executed it. “Do government organisations function only via oral communication?” he inquired.

Previously, the Supreme Court reinstated Dogar as Lahore police chief in December after the federal government suspended him in November after PTI protesters stormed the Punjab Governor’s House in response to an attack on Imran Khan in Wazirabad.

• INTRODUCTION –

The BS-21 officer was at the heart of the conflict between the federal government and the then-Punjab administration of Chaudhry Parvez Elahi. The issue of his transfer arose in September 2022, when the federal government unexpectedly recalled his services after he arrested two PML-N ministers and other officials on terrorism charges. Mr Elahi, the then-chief minister of Punjab, vetoed the plan, claiming that the federal government could not transfer him. Subsequently, in November, the PDM-led federal government suspended him for failing to secure the Governor House.

The CCPO challenged his suspension in the Lahore High Court, but the court ruled that his petition was inadmissible due to jurisdictional limitations. On November 10, a single bench of the Federal Services Tribunal (FST) restored him.

Later, the Establishment Division challenged the FST’s Nov 10 verdict, requesting the bench to roll back the previous decision of the tribunal and form a large bench to hear the case. A two-member FST bench suspended an earlier decision reinstating Dogar as CCPO on November 25.

The case was subsequently heard by the Supreme Court, which reinstated him on December 2, 2022. The caretaker Punjab government then replaced Dogar with Bilal Siddique Kamyana as the new Lahore CCPO on January 23.