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.