Destroying the ecosystem: PHC stays auction of two plazas in Abbottabad

Directs EPA K-P DG to visit site and submit survey report.

PESHAWAR:

The Peshawar High Court has stayed the auction of two under-construction plazas in Abbottabad and directed Environmental Protection Agency Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa DG to visit the site and submit a survey report.

The orders were issued on Tuesday by a bench comprising Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Musarrat Hilali during the hearing of a petition filed by Mahmood Ahmad Aslam, a resident of Abbottabad.

In his petition, Aslam said the commercial plazas are being built in front of the DIG’s office. He had approached the PHC Abbottabad Bench earlier but it dismissed his petition with the observation that he should approach the appropriate forum. Aslam then filed a request with the Environmental Tribunal and on December 12, 2014 the EPA K-P DG raised questions on its maintainability.

The petitioner added since construction was well under way and trees were being cut with the tribunal neither issuing a result nor deciding on the application’s maintainability, he decided to approach the high court.

“The matter was finally taken up by the tribunal on February 8, however, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Environmental Protection Act 2014 had come into force by then, replacing the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997,” the petition read, adding the new legislation rendered the tribunal functus officio—unfit to proceed with the case.

Aslam said the development is harming the ecosystem and decades-old precious trees are being uprooted, destroying natural rainwater course.

The court was requested to restrain secretary military lands and estates, Abbottabad Cantonment CEO and owner Ali Asghar Khan from constructing or handing a contract to any other person for the construction of the buildings being built on Pine View Road.

The petitioner also requested the court to issue directives for the restoration of the original state of the land. Upon hearing the arguments, the court stayed the auction.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 5^th, 2015.