Infrastructure development: Larger bench to hear petitions

LAHORE:

Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Ijazul Ahsan on Saturday constituted a larger bench to decide a number of petitions related to the Chine-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the Orange Line Metro Train project.

Justice Khalid Mahmood Khan will head the five-member bench. Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan, Justice Abid Aziz Sheikh, Justice Ali Akbar Qureshi and Justice Shahid Karim will be its other members. On March 17, a division bench, headed by Justice Khan, had referred to the chief justice a petition against the CPEC and the metro train project, with a request to consolidate all petitions regarding the project and constitute a larger bench to decide the matter. The larger bench will hear the petitions on Monday. Advocate Azhar Siddique, the counsel of several civil society organisations in petitions filed against the train project, has challenged the constitution of the larger bench. The lawyer said that the chief justice had already constituted a division bench, comprising Justice Abid Aziz Sheikh and Justice Shahid Karim, that had been hearing petitions related to the metro train project. He said that a local commission had also been appointed by the bench to check violations of stay orders.

He said that counsel for the government had misled the division bench.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 20^th, 2016.