PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday stopped the Peshawar Development Authority from taking the role of maintaining and supervising all major roads and bus stands in the provincial capital from the metropolitan and town councils until further orders.

A bench consisting of Justice Roohul Amin Khan and Justice Abdul Shakoor issued orders for it after holding a preliminary hearing into a petition, which challenged government notifications for the handing over of Peshawar roads and bus stands to the PDA.

It also admitted to full hearing the petition jointly filed by Peshawar Metropolitan mayor Zubair Ali, chairmen of five town councils Haroon Siffat, Tilla Mohammad, Faridullah Khan, Kaleemullah and Arbab Mohammad Umar, All Pakistan Local Government Workers Federation president Malik Mohammad Naveed Awan and United Municipal workers Union general secretary Syed Waqar Ali Shah.

The respondents in the petition are the provincial government through its chief secretary, and local government, law and parliamentary affairs secretaries.

Admits plea of local body heads against clipping of powers to full hearing

The petitioners requested the court to declare the impugned notifications issued on June 17, Aug 12 and Aug 16, 2022, illegal and in violation of Article 140-A of the Constitution.

They also seek the court’s directives for the government to ‘suitably’ amend the KP Land use and Building Control Act, 2021, in accordance with Article 140-A of the Constitution. The bench fixed Nov 29 for the next hearing into the petition.

Senior lawyer Qazi Jawad Ehsanullah said through various orders and notifications several important functions and powers conferred upon different tiers of elected local governments, as established under Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act, 2013, had been clipped off and conferred upon non-elected and non-representative bodies.

He said the elected local governments were made redundant and powerless and that too in absolute disregard of Article 140-A of the Constitution, which provided that each province should devolve local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to the elected representatives of these local governments.

The lawyer said a notification was issued by the government on June 17 declaring that different roads and their maintenance and supervision had been withdrawn from the metropolitan and tehsil local governments of Peshawar and transferred to the PDA.

He said the notification was followed by a series of other notifications issued by the PDA on Aug 12 and Aug 16 whereby the PDA was insisting upon the different offices of the local governments such as town municipal officers of various tehsils to provide them necessary details of matters such as contracts of advertisements, receipts and alike functions.

Mr Ehsanullahsaid besides maintenance of roads, establishment, supervision and running of bus terminals was also a major statutory function of the Peshawar Metropolitan City local government.

He argued that this particular function of the local government at entire district level derived its force and validity from the Local Government Act and rules of business made there under including the KP Bus Stand and Traffic Control (Peshawar) Ordinance, 1975.

The lawyer said it was in exercise of such authority conferred upon the elected local government of the Metropolitan City of Peshawar that it had been maintaining, supervising and running Peshawar bus stand (adda) on the GT Road near Old Haji Camp, Peshawar.

He contended that from that particular source, the Metropolitan City Local Government had been earning a handsome amount of revenue, which was one of the very few feeding sources used for paying salaries to its employees and upon other spending made on a wide variety of different municipal functions.

Mr Jawad said the government had also conferred the management of an under-construction General Bus Terminal in Sardar Garhi area on the PDA. He added that the PDA Act, 2017, didn’t provide for the exercise of those functions by the authority.

The counsel said the building control, zoning, land-use, housing and spatial planning used to be one of the important municipal functions of local governments within their territorial limits and jurisdiction, but since the promulgation of KP Land Use and Building Control Act, 2021, the particular function had been taken away and had been conferred upon non-elected and non-representatives bodies established thereunder.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2022