LHC orders Punjab Police to appoint woman sub-inspector

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) has ordered the Punjab Police to implement its 2020 ruling within 30 days by appointing a woman as a sub-inspector, holding that the department had not complied with the judgment in its true spirit.

Justice Raheel Kamran passed the order while disposing of a contempt petition filed by Syeda Amira Batool against the Punjab inspector general of police over non-implementation of the 2020 judgment. Batool had moved the court after she was denied appointment as a police sub-inspector despite being recommended by the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) against the women’s quota.

Appointment dispute

According to the case record, the PPSC had advertised 27 posts of sub-inspector in BS-14 for the Sargodha Region. Batool cleared the selection process and was recommended for appointment, but the police department did not issue her appointment letter after raising objections linked to her character verification report.

The department had referred to alleged drug trafficking cases involving Batool’s father and brother and claimed that she did not fulfil the requirement of having a good family background. Batool challenged that decision before the LHC, which in December 2020 set aside the department’s order and directed that her appointment letter be issued.

In that earlier judgment, the court had noted that there was no allegation against Batool herself and that no law barred a person from joining the police service merely because relatives were allegedly involved in criminal activity.

Court finds conditional offer insufficient

Justice Kamran observed that, despite the 2020 order, the police issued a conditional appointment letter in 2021, making the appointment subject to the outcome of an intra-court appeal filed by the department. Batool did not join, maintaining that she was already serving permanently as an assistant education officer and could not leave that post for an appointment tied to pending litigation.

The police later withdrew the appointment in 2022 on the ground that she had failed to join the department. The order says the department then withdrew its intra-court appeal in 2026. After that, Batool again sought enforcement of the 2020 judgment, but the department rejected her request through a speaking order in May 2026.

During proceedings in the contempt matter, counsel for the petitioner argued that the police had undermined the court’s ruling through administrative steps and denied her the benefit of the judgment. The police, on the other hand, contended that they had already complied by issuing the appointment order and that Batool herself had declined to join service.

Rejecting that position, Justice Kamran ruled that a judgment remains binding unless it is suspended, modified or set aside by a competent forum, and that merely filing an appeal does not relieve a party of the duty to comply. The judge held that the conditional appointment order could not amount to effective implementation because it had been made dependent on the outcome of an appeal that had not stayed the original judgment.

The court also held that Batool’s decision to wait for the appeal’s outcome could not be treated as giving up her right, particularly when the uncertainty had been created by the department itself.

"Compliance with a judicial determination cannot be cosmetic, conditional or illusory. It must be real, effective and faithful to the command of the court," Justice Kamran observed.

The judge did not initiate punitive contempt proceedings at this stage and instead gave the police department an opportunity to purge the alleged contempt by carrying out the judgment. He directed the IGP to implement the 2020 order within 30 days and submit a compliance report before the deputy registrar (Judicial). The court also warned that if the order is not carried out within the stipulated period, the petitioner will be at liberty to initiate fresh contempt proceedings against the officials concerned.