Mayor seeks power

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday issued notices to respondents on a petition filed by the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation (IMC) Mayor Sheikh Ansar Aziz against the cancellation of a solid waste management contract.

In a petition filed by Aziz, through his counsel Barrister Zafarullah, he argued that the IMC had issued a tender for removing solid waste from the federal capital. However, the contract was cancelled by the interior ministry through a notification.

The mayor argued that he was seeking to exercise his constitutional powers, but they were being illegally exercised by the Capital Development Authority (CD) and the Islamabad Capital Territory Administration (ICTA).

The mayor argued that Islamabad is a separate administrative unit like other provinces. The first local bodies’ elections were held in the city in 1980 but were limited to the rural areas only.

Aziz added that later in 2015, the local bodies’ elections were organised in rural and urban areas after amendments in the law and he was elected as the mayor of the city on a Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N) ticket.

Aziz demanded the court dismiss the interior ministry’s notification on cancelling the solid waste management contract.

The secretary and additional secretary of the interior ministry, CDA, ICTA, Special Adviser to PM on CDA Affairs Ali Nawaz Awan and the Local Government Commission have been made respondents in the case.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 4^th, 2020.