PHC lifts status quo on uplift schemes in Peshawar

PESHAWAR: A division bench of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Wednesday okayed development schemes in all 14 provincial constituencies of the Peshawar district.

The bench comprising Justice Laal Jan and Justice Naeem Anwar dismissed the multiple writ petitions filed by MPAs Khushdil Khan and Salahuddin from ANP. It lifted the status quo issued on all development schemes, which had practically halted all development works in the provincial capital since March 2020.

The advocate general appeared for the KP government while Khushdil Khan, being a senior advocate of the Supreme Court, himself appeared to plead the case. Khushdil Khan argued that the government could not discriminate amongst various constituencies, adding it and must release equal development funds to each provincial assembly constituency.

He argued that the development fund and schemes were to be approved by the District Development Advisory Committee (DDAC) which had MPAs as members. The legislator alleged that the government acted in bad faith by allocating funds at the behest of Governor Shah Farman and Minister Taimur Salim Jhagra.

Advocate General Shumail Ahmad Butt argued that MPAs had no direct constitutional mandate to decide or recommend schemes after the pronouncement by the apex court in the Raja Pervez Ashraf case. The KP cabinet had already approved ADP Policy 2019-23 and such the policy had been affirmed even by the PHC.

Under this policy, the past practices of allocating funds to chief minister, ministers and MPAs had been shunned, added the advocate general. He argued that the chief minister could not issue directives for the development schemes under the new policy. There was no role for the DDACs after the 18th Amendment to the Constitution and LG Act 2013, he added. The advocate general said the budget-making and allocating schemes was the executive function of government and thus not subject to a judicial review.