Pakistan (Exchange of Prisoners) Ordinance, 1948

Issued just months after Partition, this 1948 Ordinance implemented an agreement between Pakistan and India to exchange certain classes of prisoners between the two newly formed countries. Part II (Sections 3 to 6) covers "transferable prisoners" — defined in Section 19 as Hindus (including Scheduled Caste members) or Sikhs held in Pakistani prisons who are willing to be moved to India. A Provincial Government could issue a warrant for such a prisoner's transfer (Section 3), the prison officer-in-charge had to hand the prisoner over along with their records (Section 4), and once transferred, Pakistani courts lost jurisdiction over that prisoner's case (Section 5).

Part III (Sections 7 to 16) covers the reverse situation: "repatriated prisoners" being sent from India back into Pakistan. Officials could issue warrants for their custody and removal (Section 7), and receiving prisons had to detain them according to whatever warrant accompanied them, or, if no warrant arrived, report the case to the District Magistrate and High Court while continuing to detain the prisoner (Section 8). If the underlying warrant was missing, Section 9 required the District Magistrate to reconstruct it based on available records, and if that inquiry dragged on beyond two months, the prisoner generally had to be released on bail unless they were serving a long sentence for a listed offence. Section 13 barred prosecuting a repatriated prisoner unless the alleged offence was also a crime under Pakistani law, and required proper sanction before prosecution in certain cases.

Part IV contains general provisions: Section 17 makes it lawful to recapture an escaped transferred or repatriated prisoner, and Section 18 lets the Federal Government make implementing rules. The Schedule at the end lists which classes of people (civil servants and military personnel of any religion, and Muslims from specific former princely states and Delhi) the repatriation provisions applied to.

This is a historical, transitional-era law tied specifically to the 1947 Partition prisoner-exchange agreement, and it has been amended multiple times since (references to "India" were later removed via a 1961 Adaptation Order). Given its narrow historical purpose and age, it is unlikely to have ongoing practical application today, and any current use should be verified against the official text.