Kalabagh Dam: LHC urges federal govt to take petitions seriously

Centre directed to explain hurdles to building dam in detail by October 17.

LAHORE:

Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial of the Lahore High Court has directed the federal government to submit a detailed written reply by October 17 to petitions seeking the construction of Kalabagh Dam as a solution to the Pakistan’s power crisis.

The chief justice said that the government’s reply must detail the challenges in building the dam. He said that the government did not appear to be taking the petitions seriously, though the dam was a matter of public welfare.

The petitioners, lawyer Syed Feroze Shah Gillani and others, submitted that the government should be directed to convene a meeting of the Council of Common Interests to decide the fate of the dam project.

The petitioners, citing former Khyber Pakhtunkhawa caretaker chief minister and former Wapda chairman Shamsul Mulk, submitted that “the country’s survival is at stake due fast depleting water resources” and the Kalabagh Dam was in the national interest.

They submitted that the absence of dams was hurting KP the most, as even after the completion of Basha Dam the province would be short of water. He said building the Kalabagh Dam would make irrigation water available at affordable prices to vast tracts of land in the province.

The CCI said in its reply to the petitions that it had no objections to the construction of the dam. However, it said that it had already made its recommendations on the matter to the federal government, whose responsibility it was to decide the matter. Wapda also submitted a report on the petition, stating that the dam would help meet Pakistan’s energy needs.

The provincial assemblies of KP (in December 1988), of Balochistan (in October 1994) and of Sindh (in June 1994) had passed unanimous resolutions against the construction of Kalabagh Dam.

The petitioner said that the apprehensions of the three provinces were ill founded and the government should have launched an awareness programme to inform legislators about the importance of the project.

‘Govt must move International Court of Justice against filmmakers’

Jamaatud Dawa chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed has asked the Lahore High Court to order the federal government to move the International Court of Justice against the makers of an anti-Islam film that has caused uproar in the Muslim world.

Saeed submitted that though American President Barack Obama had condemned the movie in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, he had also defended the US constitutional protection of freedom of expression.

The petitioner said that mere denial of the Holocaust was a crime in many Western countries. He said German author and historian Ernst Zundel had spent seven years behind bars for expressing views about the Holocaust that did not match the official version.

He said that the foreign policy of Pakistan needed to be restructured and regulated in the light of Article 40 of the Constitution, which envisaged strengthening bonds with the Muslim world and promoting international peace.

Saeed said that the “the relationship of absolute servility” between Pakistan and the United States should be declared contrary to the fundamental right to “dignity of man” as enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution.

He asked the court to direct the government to initiate proceedings at the International Court of Justice against the makers of the anti-Islam film for violating Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 13^th, 2012.