PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday directed the relevant authorities to produce reports on the illegal sand excavation from the bed of the Kunhar River in Mansehra, the construction of a hotel on Nathiagali forestland, and encroachments along major rivers in the province.

A bench consisting of Chief Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan and Justice Syed M. Attique Shah also directed them not to yield to any pressure by influential people during a crackdown on law offenders.

It also directed commissioner of the Hazara division Mutahir Zeb to examine the construction of a five-star hotel in Nathiagali area following the alleged encroachment of the land of Ayubia National Park.

The bench voiced concern about the non-appointment of officers to key posts, including that of the directors general of the KP Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Galiyat Development Authority (GDA), and ordered the early filling of those vacancies.

Orders early filling of top EPA, GDA vacancies

It fixed Jan 25 for next hearing into the matter.

In Sept this year, the court had turned down the petition of a private Chinese company to allow the excavation of sand and gravel from the bed of the Kunhar River for the Suki Kinari hydropower project in Manshera district.

The court had directed the company, Jiuzhou Hengton Machinery & Engineering Limited, to find another place for riverbed mining and inform the EPA and mines department about it.

It had issued those orders over the company’s petition for permission to excavate sand from the riverbed.

During Tuesday hearing, the high court also ordered the clubbing of that petition with the cases in question.

Few months ago, Chief Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan, while heading the Green Bench dealing with environment-related cases, had taken exception to encroachments along the River Swat, River Kunhar, River Chitral and others in the province and ordered their removal.

He had also taken notice of the alleged deforestation in parts of the province.

On Tuesday, the court observed that when any question was asked about an environment-related issue, the court was told that the relevant secretary had been transferred or the new secretary had not taken charge.

It added that several important posts had been lying vacant.

Provincial advocate general Shumail Ahmad Butt informed the bench that the government had recently appointed one of the most competent officers, Abid Majeed, as the environment secretary to effectively tackle environmental and forestry issues.

He said on the next hearing, the secretary would brief the court about initiatives taken by the government for checking environmental degradation and forest protection.

Hazara commissioner Mutahir Zeb told the bench that on the court’s orders, the administration had stopped the Chinese company from excavating sand and gravel from the riverbed and impounded machinery for that purpose and others.

He said the company had claimed that it had received an NOC from the mining department for the purpose, but it failed to produce that.

The commissioner said the company was excavation around 30,000 tons of sand and gravel from the bed of the River Kunhar for the execution of the Suki Kinaru project, but the action by the administration led to the suspension of excavation.

He added that the administration was also acting against other violators of the law.

The chief justice observed that the Chinese company had been acting like the East India Company and was damaging natural resources of the country.

He wondered why the relevant officers had turned a blind eye towards the illegal activities of that company.

The bench was told that the top GDA post was vacant after the high court’s Abbottabad Circuit Bench declared the appointment of the last chief illegal.

The bench observed that an FIR should have been registered against that DG as he had remained silent on the felling of precious forests in Ayubia for building a hotel.

It asked the Hazara commissioner not to be pressured by anyone during the crackdown on lawbreakers.

The AG said both high court and provincial government shared the same objective of checking environment-related problems and for that reason, the government fully endorsed the orders issued by the court in that respect.

The chief justice observed that the court won’t allow the tourism development through deforestation and environmental degradation.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2021