Airport project in Mansehra

Court summons CS, others

By Our Correspondent

MANSEHRA: A local judge on Tuesday summoned chief secretary Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, additional secretary Civil Aviation Authority, deputy commissioner and the project director to appear before him in airport abandoning case.

The civil court judge, Mohammad Ilyas, ordered four of nine respondents in airport case to appear in court on December 13 this year following five respondents appeared personally or through their attorneys.

The District Bar Association Mansehra had challenged a federal government’s official letter in which it (federal government) had ordered deputy commissioner Mansehra earlier this year to withhold process for acquisition of over 6000 kanals of land for establishment of an airport in Tanawal area and returned an amount of Rs337 million which it had already released to district administration for the project.

The federal deputy secretary Planning and Development, secretary Civil Secretariat Peshawar, federal secretary Parliamentary Affairs and commissioner Hazara Division appeared in the court through their representatives and submitted their replies. A panel of lawyers appeared in court on behalf of District Bar Association requesting it to annual federal government’s order of scrapping the airport project.

“We requested the court that land for this project has already been acquired and even work on it has started, but the now federal government wants to scrap the project despite releasing an amount of Rs337 million for land acquisition,” Mohammad Arif Tanoli Advocate told reporters after the court hearing.

He said that the representatives of the provincial government agreed to go ahead with the airport project if the federal government agreed to it. A three-member inspection team led by PML-N MNA Muhammad Sajjad Awan and formed by National Assembly’s Committee on Planning and Reforms would visit the airport site in Tanawal on November 19 this year and submit its report whether or not the project was feasible.