The Lahore High Court (LHC)’s Rawalpindi bench on Monday extended its stay orders until May 3 in a case pertaining to the allocation of 1,200-kanal land on Chak Belli Road at Losar in the suburb of Rawalpindi to the Capital Development Authority (CDA) for dumping capital’s waste.
At the previous hearing of the case, the court had barred CDA from acquiring the landfill site. The court directives were issued on petitions challenging the Rawalpindi administration’s notification, allowing the CDA to acquire the land and dump the capital’s waste at Losar.
Earlier, the CDA had to postpone the public hearing seeking objections regarding the dumping of the capital’s waste at Losar after the Punjab Environment Protection Department objected to the hurriedly called public debate.
During Monday’s hearing, Justice Mirza Waqas Rauf expressed immense indignation at the CDA chairman for failing to submit a response and granted him the final opportunity to submit the response at the next hearing.
The court also ordered the Rawalpindi commissioner and deputy commissioner to refrain from acquiring the landfill site for CDA at Losar, Rawalpindi until the final adjudication of the case.
The court remarked: “This is a basic human rights issue. After receiving replies from all the parties, the respective counsels will be heard on merits and then an appropriate decision will be made according to the law.”
At the onset of the hearing, the Punjab Environment Protection Department submitted its response, adopting the stance that there was no negative impact of the garbage dumping site in Rawalpindi. “There is no bad smell either. The groundwater is also clean and no disease has spread. There will be no harm in making it a dumping site for Islamabad,” it argued.
On the other hand, Advocate Omar Hayat Gondal, attorney for the petitioner, and resident Haji Iqbal contend that cancer, TB, ear, nose, throat, and stomach diseases have spread due to the presence of the Pindi’s landfill site.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 11th, 2023.
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