PHC seeks progress report on pollution control in Peshawar

Withdraws contempt notice issued to columnist

PESHAWAR: A special ‘Green Bench’ of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday sought progress reports from the provincial and local governments and Cantonment Board, Peshawar, in a writ petition filed against increasing pollution in the provincial capital.

The two-member bench, comprising Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Daud Khan, directed the Water and Sanitation Services Peshawar (WSSP), secretary Transport and Mass Transit Department, director general Planning and Development Authority, deputy commissioner Peshawar and Cantonment Board to submit progress reports with the director general (DG) Environmental Protection Agency for submission in the court.

Director General Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Dr Muhammad Bashir Khan appeared on behalf of the respondents in the case.The EPA chief submitted in the court that main causes of pollution were vehicular emission, garbage, buildings and industrial waste in the city. However, he said that there were separate institutions responsible to overcome the menace.

The court issued directions in a writ petition filed by Peshawar-based lawyers Ghulam Shoaib Jaaly and Hamad Hussain Yousafzai. The petitioners had sought directions from the court to give deadline to the government and the agencies concerned to take action on a war-footing against all sorts of pollution.

The lawyer said it was revealed recently in the World Health Organisation (WHO) report that Peshawar is the second most polluted city out of 1,600 cities in the world.He said that Peshawar city had been polluted since long and different departments were set up from time to time by the provincial government to tackle it. The petitioner argued that both the federal and provincial governments had spent billions of rupees for the protection of environment and created environmental protection agencies, departments and court and statutes.

He said that millions of rupees had also been spent on the publicity campaign of the provincial government, but the issue of pollution was increasing day by day. The petitioner requested the high court to direct the government and agencies to take stern action against pollution, provide timeframe in which they would be able to control pollution in Peshawar, provide the details of funds spent on anti-pollution campaigns and furnish the reasons for non-implementation of pollution control measures.

The bench also issued notice to local government department to make arrangements for disposing of the waste from 300 marble factories in Buner district. The EPA DG informed the bench that he had taken notice of pollution from the marble factories and now they had installed settler tanks for the waste to overcome the pollution. However, he said that now arrangements were required for disposing of the waste from the factories.

Meanwhile, the Chief Justice of the PHC Mazhar Alam Miankhel observed on Thursday that judiciary is not against the freedom of expression but one should not cross the limits while criticising an institution without facts and proofs.

He made these observations in a contempt of court notice issued to prominent lawyer and columnist Babar Sattar for a column in an English newspaper wherein appointments of additional district and sessions judges by the high court were criticised.

A division bench comprising the chief justice and Justice Roohul Amin Khan withdrew the contempt of court notice issued to the senior lawyer after senior lawyers including Peshawar High Court Bar Association president, Muzzamil Khan, Asma Jahangir, Abdul Latif Afridi requested the court to withdraw the contempt notice as the aim of the article was constructive criticism. However, the bench observed that in future he should avoid such criticism of the judiciary.

“We welcome the constructive criticism. No one can be stopped from writing, but it should be based on facts and evidence,” the chief justice remarked. During hearing, Asma Jehangir submitted before the bench that Babar Sattar is a prominent lawyer and has been writing articles for the last 14 years on the independence of judiciary and other legal issues. She said his article was for constructive criticism. She said that sometimes we do criticise judiciary, but that was constructive criticism.

However, the chief justice said that sometimes the criticism was creating bad impression in the minds of public regarding the institution. The chief justice further stated that the writing should be up to the limits. On previous hearing, the bench had directed Babar Sattar, who was present before the bench in connection with another case, to file a written reply to the notice within 15 days.

Babar Sattar had published a column “In the name of justice?” in February this year in which the procedure adopted for appointment of 25 additional district and sessions judges in KP was criticised.