AJK President praises Ombudsman for providing inexpensive justice
ISLAMABAD, March 31: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan has appreciated the performance of the state ombudsman for dispensing quick justice to the people and protecting their rights.
He stated this while speaking to AJK Ombudsman, Chaudhry Muhammad Nasim Advocate who called on him and presented the report of the performance of his institution for the year 2020 to him here on Wednesday. Secretary Mohtasib Absar Hussain Jarral was also present on the occasion.
The President expressed his hope that the institutions of Ombudsman would continue its efforts to provide relief to the people and further improve the system of governance in the liberated territory through effective implementation of its decision.
The state president said that the basic objective of establishing ombudsman’s institution was to provide relief and justice to the complainants after thorough investigation, and the institution has all the way come up to the expectations of both the government and the people in this regard.
In his annual report for 2020, the ombudsman stated that the outbreak of Covid-19 and the subsequent lockdowns last year had also cast negative impacts on the performance of ombudsman’s secretariat like other institutions, and the receipt of complaints and the compliance with its recommendations remained somewhat slow. After receipt of 189 complaints at the end of 2020, the total number of under process complaints stood at 441, and in this way all 39 complaints are under process in Registry wing and another 213 complaints in investigation wing.
The report says that 36 complaints related to education department, board of revenue, electricity department, works department and the local government department were received from Muzaffarabad, Bhimber, Kotli, Poonch and other districts and from Kashmiris settled in Pakistan and abroad.
The state ombudsman told the AJK president that the registration and record wings of the ombudsman’s secretariat had been functioning in shelters in dilapidated conditions since the catastrophic earthquake of 2005. Therefore, it has become necessary to provide proper accommodation to the ombudsman’s secretariat on priority basis.
Besides, regional offices of the ombudsman’s secretariat should be established in Mirpur and Poonch divisions to administer justice to the people at their doorstep.
The state Ombudsman suggested that legislation like “The Enforcement of Women’s Property Rights introduced by the federal government should also be introduced in AJK, besides restoring the powers of Ombudsman to take notice of the contempt of court.
The state president assured the ombudsman that every kind of cooperation would be extended to further improve the performance of AJK ombudsman’s secretariat besides, the legislation would be considered to promulgate in Azad Kashmir, a reforms act on the pattern of Federal Ombudsman’s Secretariat in order to protect inherent rights of women.
Sardar Masood Khan said that steps would be taken to fulfil valid demands for providing accommodation and transport for the ombudsman’s secretariat.
