Islamabad High Court refuses to allow mayor’s temporary return

Rejects request to suspend order removing Aziz from authority, gives respondents a week to submit replies

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court has issued notices to respondents on a petition filed by the capital’s mayor challenging a verdict which had ousted him from the Capital Development Authority (CDA)’s hot seat.

A two-judge bench of the IHC, comprising Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, issued the notices with directions to submit a reply within a week’s time.

The bench, however, turned down a request to suspend the judgment on Thursday, meaning the mayor will not be reinstated to his CDA post.

The Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation (IMC) Mayor Sheikh Anser Aziz, through his counsel Taimoor Aslam, had filed a petition challenging the December 29, 2017, order passed by Justice Athar Minallah.

The order had set aside two notifications pertaining to Aziz’s appointment as the chairman of the CDA.

Justice Minallah had declared that Aziz cannot keep his additional charge of CDA chairman. He had ordered the federal government to complete the selection process and appoint a chairman for a fixed tenure within 45 days from the date of announcement of the judgment.

The notifications which had given Aziz the additional charge of CDA chairman on a part-time basis after his ex-officio appointment as a member of the board had been challenged.

In his appeal, Aziz had argued that the impugned judgment was not sustainable in law and facts of the case, and hence were liable to be set aside.

Subsequently, he urged the court to allow an intra-court appeal, set aside the judgment of December 29, 2017, and dismiss all the petitions which challenged the appointment of CDA chairman.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2018.