Pakistani Laws on maintainability of Anonymous or

Pseudonymous Complaints

No Pakistani Law allows anonymous or pseudonymous complaints to be

entertained, on the other hand, rather there are some statutes which restrict the
maintainability of Anonymous or pseudonymous Complaints.

1. The Lahore High Court held in its decision vide PLD 2020 Lahore 363
that no anonymous or pseudonymous complaint is maintainable either it
is lodged
i. online through Pakistan Citizen’s Portal or
ii. to any Public Officer or
iii. to the Federal Ombudsman or the Provincial Ombudsman
2. No investigation can be undertaken against any anonymous or
pseudonymous complaint, as per the following Statutes:
a. Clause 8 of the HEC Policy (Higher Education Commission
Plagiarism Policy)
b. Section 10 (2) and Section 17 (o) of the Punjab Office of the
Ombudsman Act 1997
c. Rule 4 (1) (c) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Directorate of Human Rights
(Procedure) Rules, 2015, in conjunction with section 13 of the
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Promotion, Protection and Enforcement of
Human Rights Act, 2014, (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Act No. III of 2014).
The relevant part of the Rule provides as:
“4. Procedure for dealing with complaints. ---(1) All
complaints, in whatever form received by the Directorate,
shall be registered and assigned a number and placed for
admission before the Director in not later than two (2)
working days of the receipt of such complaint and the
Director shall within three (3) working days, decide
whether the complaint shall be accepted or rejected.
Ordinarily complaints of the following nature are not
entertainable by the Directorate:
….(c) which are vague, anonymous or pseudonymous;”
d. Article 10 clause 2 of the Establishment of the Office of Wafaqi
Mohtasib (0mbudsman) Order, 1983
e. Section 23, sub section 1, clause (w) of the Wafaqi Mohtasib
(Investigation and Disposal of Complaints) Regulations, 2013.

Muhammad Sajid
Advocate High Court
Lawyer, Educationist & Research Writer
Islamabad Pakistan
sajidlegalservices@gmail.com +92 345 9301606