Centre put on notice on plea against non-provision of funds to PPP MNAs

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday issued notices to the cabinet secretary, finance secretary and others on a petition filed by the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) members of the National Assembly belonging to Karachi against non-provision of development funds to them by the federal government.

The petitioners, Syed Rafiullah, Jam Abdul Karim and Abdul Qadir Patel, who were elected as MNAs from three constituencies of Karachi, have submitted in the petition that the federal government had released more than Rs3.4 billion development funds to the Karachi MNAs of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and its coalition partners; however, no development funds had been granted to them as they belonged to the PPP which is an opposition party in the National Assembly.

A counsel for the petitioners, Wazeer Hussain Khoso, submitted that the three PPP MNAs represented the people of Karachi in the National Assembly from the constituencies NA-236, NA-238 and NA-248 and they had not been provided funds by the federal government.

He submitted that the act of the federal government was purely an act of discrimination and the non-disbursement of funds had taken place in view of political considerations with the intent to victimise the people who were being represented by the petitioners.

He argued that the federal government had exercised discrimination by granting the development funds to the ruling party and its coalition partners’ MNAs, ignoring the MNAs of the opposition benches.

The lawyer submitted that depriving the people of the constituencies who had elected the opposition MNAs of development works in their area was discriminatory and unlawful. The SHC was requested to direct the federal government to release development funds for the respective constituencies of the three PPP MNAs as well.

A division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Omar Sial, after the preliminary hearing of the petition, had issued notices to the federal law officer, cabinet secretary, finance secretary and others, and called their comments on June 15.