PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Thursday returned on technical grounds a petition filed by a resident of Peshawar requesting to declare as illegal the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s move to participate in the Nov 24 scheduled protest of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf in Islamabad.

The petitioner, Jalaluddin, had requested the high court to restrain the respondents including the KP government from participating in the said protest by declaring the announcement made by the government in this regard as illegal and against the basic fundamental rights of the general public.

The petitioner’s counsel informed that the petition would be re-submitted today (Friday) after removing the objections raised by the additional registrar of the court.

He said the official had objected that the petition would not be maintainable as the federal government had not been made respondent in it.

Counsel says will re-submit it on Friday

However, he said, there was no need to make the federal government party in the petition as the petitioner’s prayer was against the provincial government and not federal.

He added that they would try that the plea should be fixed for hearing on Friday as otherwise it would become infructuous.

The petition filed through Afroze Ahmad advocate included as respondents the KP government through its chief executive/chief minister, KP cabinet, its chief and home secretaries and KP Inspector General of Police.

In the petition, the petitioner claimed that provincial government had completely failed to do its job for which it was elected by the people of the province.

He stated that the respondents were only busy to protest and calling march towards Islamabad.

He stated that the respondents had been using government resources such as vehicles and machinery of Rescue 1122, fire engines, and heavy machinery of local government department. He added that they had also been mobilizing government officials to join their march/protest rally towards Islamabad.

The petitioner claimed that during recent past scores of government officials were arrested in Punjab and Islamabad and several fire engines and ambulances of Rescue 1122 were also taken into possession by law enforcing agencies there.

He claimed that recently a huge fire had broken out in a factory in Peshawar’s Industrial estate, but the said factory was completely gutted as the fire brigades and other machinery were not available for rescue work.

The petitioner claimed that the provincial government had now once again announced to join the Nov 24 protest of the party in Islamabad.

He contended that the act of the KP government was against its mandate and law as the march would create law and order situation and there would also be security problems and apprehension of acts of terrorism.

He claimed that due to political unrest in the province the economy and business activities had been badly affected.

Published in Dawn, November 22th, 2024