Reason sought for signal-free corridor

LAHORE
A full bench of the Lahore High Court Tuesday directed the Punjab government to submit meeting minutes of a committee that approved the project of ‘signal-free corridor’ from Qartaba Chowk to Liberty Market, Gulberg.
The court wanted to know the reasons given by the committee to launch the project, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah observed while heading the bench. Justice Muhammad Yawar Ali and Justice Abid Aziz Sheikh are the other members of the full bench.
Advocate General Punjab Naveed Rasool Mirza appeared before the court and sought time to submit the document. The bench adjourned hearing for April 6.
Petitions were filed by Fahad Malik, Imrana Tiwana and Lahore Conservation Society.
In this case, Justice Shah as a single bench stayed the project on March 6 and directed the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) to immediately remove all machinery/cranes from the construction site. Later, Chief Justice formed full bench to further hear the matter. Petitioners submitted that the government started chopping the trees for signal-free corridor project. They said the act of the government would cause serious health hazards. They submitted that the government wanted to remove green belts from both sides of the road on main Boulevard Gulberg for this project. They said it was planned to cut countless trees along the road for this project.
They took the plea that project was started by violating many basic human rights and would cause threat to the environment. They said a total 7km corridor; they are going to construct four pedestrian bridges to facilitate the vehicular traffic. They said the area has many hospitals along this road and the government is causing hardships for patients by going with this project. They said by constructing this signal-free corridor, the area would become more noisy causing problems for patients.
They requested to declare the project illegal and unconstitutional and had also requested to grant stay order against the project until final decision of the petition.