LHC suspends appointment of BoD heads of six development authorities

LAHORE: The Lahore High Court Friday suspended appointment of chairmen of board of directors of six different development authorities of Punjab’s big cities, purportedly made on political grounds.

Punjab housing and urban development department had issued a notification on October 4, 2018, under which the appointments of the chairmen of BoDs of the development authorities were made. An overseas Pakistani namely Yasir Chaudhry had challenged the impugned notification through a writ petition.

The chairmen who would face suspension include Arif Abbasi of Rawalpindi Development Authority, Rana Jabbar of Multan Development Authority, Mumtaz Ahmad Kahloo of Sargodha Development Authority, Dr Asad Moazzam of Faisalabad Development Authority, Amir Rehman of Gujranwala Development Authority and Amir Malik of Bahawalpur Development Authority. Advocates Zeeshan Mirza and Zaheer Abbas Sheikh represented the petitioner and pleaded that all the impugned appointments had been made on the basis of political grounds and nepotism. They said all the respondents did not possess any qualification required to hold such important and specific offices nor under any law they could be nominated as chairmen of the authorities’ BoDs.

The lawyers pointed out that all respondents were either candidates or elected parliamentarians in past elections. They said the respondents had been wasting public funds unlawfully for their own political activism. They also questioned the legitimacy of the BoDs of the development authorities saying Punjab Development of Cities Act 1976 did not provide establishment of any such boards and their chairmen.

The counsel contended that the appointment of the respondents without any competition, contest, legislation and qualification was a worst example to smash the public funds and mandate. They asked the court to set aside the impugned notification issued by the secretary housing department for being illegal. However, Justice Farrukh Irfan Khan suspended the impugned notification and sought reply from the provincial government by March 14.