Signal-free corridor verdict will ‘strengthen’ LG system

LHC allows dual nationality holder to contest cantonment board elections


Rana Tanveer April 20, 2015
LHC allows dual nationality holder to contest cantonment board elections. PHOTO: LHC.GOV.PK

LAHORE: Many legal experts believe that Lahore High Court’s (LHC) Friday directive to stop the Rs1.5 billion Signal-free Corridor and preventing the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) from starting new schemes will strengthen the local government system. The court had said the LDA could only attend to its ongoing projects until local government elections were held.

The legal experts The Express Tribune spoke to say although the verdict is a bitter pill for the government to swallow, it will empower local bodies.

“Planning development projects is prerogative of local governments but the parliamentarians do not favour them because they want to take credit for such schemes,” said Advocate Tipu Salmaan Makhdoom.

The court had observed that local government elections were scheduled for September.

“All development schemes should be started by competent authorities,” Makhdoom said.

The court had earlier scrapped a project to build an elevated expressway from Gulberg to the motorway via Samanabad. Like the Signal-free Corridor the expressway was a project of the Lahore Development Authority (LDA). The court has stopped the LDA from starting any new development project saying that it has no authority to pursue such schemes.

The decision will affect at least 15 LDA projects, including an Orange Line Metro Train and the extension of Metro Bus Service from Shahdara to Rachna Town.

Makhdoom also talked about the 2014 dismissal of a similar petition challenging LDA’s powers. He said Mehar Liaqat Ali Abid, a former councillor, had filed the petition saying that after the LDA Amendment Act 2013, the LDA had become more powerful than local governments.

“After changes in the Act, the LDA has rendered the local government scheme ineffective in view of Article 140-A of the Constitution and the Punjab Local Government Ordinance 2001,” Makhdoom quoted from the petition.

He said the LHC had dismissed the petition but accepted a similar one on Friday.

In its short order on Friday, the court had observed that the corridor project could only be built after local government approval. “The project, if at all, can only be initiated after seeking permission/approval from the concerned elected local government system, as and when it is formed.”

The bench said the constitutional mandate of an elected local government system – recognised as third tier of the government under Article 140A of the Constitution – could not be diluted or encroached upon.

“As a consequence thereof, powers and functions of the LDA shall always remain subject to Article 140A and the Punjab Local Government Act, 2013,” the court said.

Cantt board polls

An LHC single bench allowed a dual nationality holder to participate in the upcoming cantonment board elections.

A returning officer had disqualified Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf candidate Khwaja Muhammad Naseer on a complaint moved by his opponent Zahid Nasim Shamsi. An election appellate tribunal had upheld the decision.

Naseer had challenged the returning officer’s decision at the LHC. The petitioner’s counsel argued that the returning officer and the appellate tribunal had unlawfully disqualified him. He said under Article 63 of the Constitution, a dual nationality holder was ineligible to contest general elections but he could run for a local government polling. He said that under the relative cantonment board law, being Pakistani was the only requirement for contesting the elections.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20th, 2015. 

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