Lame excuses: ‘Dengue ate my homework’

Lawyer seeks adjournment as ‘everyone’s busy fighting dengue’.

LAHORE:

A plea challenging the proposed conversion of a park in the Lahore Press Club Housing Scheme into residential plots was postponed without progress on Wednesday after a government lawyer told the court that the record of the case was not available because of dengue.

At the start of proceedings, a lawyer on behalf of the Punjab government sought an adjournment on the grounds that Shan Gul, the officer dealing with the case, was unavailable.

Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed rejected the request and asked him to present the record. The lawyer then said the record was not available as all the government functionaries concerned were busy fighting the dengue epidemic.

(Read: LPC Housing Scheme - Courts stays work on land reserved for park)

“Should all the government business and courts stop functioning when dengue breaks out?” said Justice Saeed in response. “If an SHO has dengue should the police refuse to register FIRs? If the Punjab government does not have enough people to run the government it should recruit more.”

He then adjourned for October 5 and told the lawyer to be sure to bring the record.

The Lahore High Court stayed the Punjab government from converting the park in January on a petition moved by journalist Din Muhammad Dard. He said that the government was planning to convert land reserved for a 110-kanal public park into plots for housing. He said that there was vacant land next to the housing scheme and this should be acquired instead for the allotment of plots to members of the Lahore Press Club. He said that the replacement park suggested by the authorities was currently privately owned.

The petition cited the Supreme Court verdict in Maulvi Iqbal Haider versus the Capital Development Authority, in which the court ruled that the residents of a housing scheme had the right to use public parks in the scheme and this right could not be removed by the state.



Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd, 2011.