In a recent hearing at the Peshawar High Court, a concerning issue came to light: official vehicles with professional number plates were being used for drug smuggling. The court’s written judgment, authored by Justice Ishtiaq Ibrahim, highlighted this problem.
The judgment revealed that in many cases, vehicles with departmental, professional, and private number plates were involved in drug trafficking. The judgment noted that traffickers often used vehicles with number plates associated with entities like the health department, lawyers, judiciary, police, and excise to evade law enforcement.
In response, the court mandated that all officers, whether in official or private roles, must use government-issued number plates. To address the issue comprehensively, the Peshawar High Court banned the use of professional number plates on government department vehicles to prevent drug trafficking. They also ordered legal action against vehicles with such number plates.
The judgment stressed the removal of all departmental, professional, or private number plates from vehicles. The court instructed the Additional Registrar to share the judgment with key authorities, including the Chief Secretary, Inspector General of Police, Secretary of Excise, Director of Prosecution, Registrar of the High Court, and Secretary of the KP Bar Council. This multi-pronged approach aims to tackle the problem of drug trafficking linked to the misuse of official and professional number plates on vehicles.
