PESHAWAR: Former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Mahmood Khan on Tuesday filed a petition in the Peshawar High Court against the current provincial government’s move of removing several ongoing development schemes in his native Swat district from the Annual Development Programme-2024-25.

Mr Khan, who is also the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-Parliamentarians, requested the court to declare that act of the government illegal.

He also sought the court’s orders for the respondents, including the provincial government, to restore and allocate proper funds as per the law to all development schemes mentioned by him.

The petitioner sought interim relief seeking directives for the respondents not to stop funds and payments already in the pipeline for contractor liabilities allocated to the development schemes as per the details provided by him until the final disposal of the petition.

Seeks PHC’s intervention

The respondents in the petition, filed through advocate Sultan Mohammad Khan, include the provincial chief minister, chief secretary, additional chief secretary (planning and development), and secretaries of the public health engineering, communication and works, irrigation, finance, planning and development, local government, health, agriculture and higher education departments.

The petitioner said that he had been elected multiple times to various important public offices including nazim, MPA, provincial minister and also the chief minister.

He said that the people of the province in general and that of his native are in particular had time and again reposed their trust in him because of his selfless services that he had provided to his people.

The petitioner said that the last general elections were held on Feb 8, 2024, as a result of which a new government was formed both at the federal and provincial level. He added that the government of KP formed as a result of these elections was that of his political rivals.

He said that the budget session of the provincial assembly was held in Jun 2024 wherein the ruling party passed the budget along with the ADP 2024-25 by virtue of its sheer brute majority.

Mr Khan said that he was greatly disappointed when it came to his knowledge that many pro-poor projects related to public welfare and collective development of backward areas had been dropped by the government from the ADP.

The petitioner gave details of 26 such development schemes, including restoration of roads and bridges damaged due to flood in 2022, establishment of Agriculture Complex at Matta, rehabilitation and reconstruction of mosques and seminaries in Swat, upgradation of hospitals, restoration of water supply in irrigation channels and system, establishment of a paraplegic centre, etc.

Mr Khan contended that the ‘dropped’ schemes were properly as per law previously included in the ADP 2022-23 by the provincial government after approval from the then provincial cabinet and provincial assembly after voting.

He claimed that the respondents, especially the chief minister, were approached several times by MPAs of the petitioner’s party on all available forums, including the assembly, to stop the discrimination only to settle political scores with the petitioner.

The petitioner also said the high court, in a judgement on Oct 3, 2017, declared that a development scheme once passed by the provincial cabinet and the provincial assembly as per the law and rules couldn’t be arbitrarily dropped.

He contended that the illegal action of the respondents was resulting in deprivation of people of basic facilities necessary for human life, including education, health, drinking water, and sanitation.

Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2024