RAWALPINDI, Oct 31: The Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench on Friday suspended further proceedings on eleven petitions filed by a number of town nazims against special audits of local governments by the Punjab administration. Justice Hamid Ali Shah put off the hearing to be fixed later in the petitions challenging the legality of special audits of local bodies and the way the audits were being conducted. The court observed that the absence of the Punjab advocate general in the court showed lack of seriousness of the provincial government in resolving the issue.

The eleven petitioners, making Punjab government through secretary local government and community developments, the respective district coordination officers and town municipal officers as respondents, have challenged the decision of the Punjab government to conduct special audit of the local governments and freezing of their accounts by seizing the records since 2001.

The petitioners maintained that there were only two types of audits the local governments could conduct. One was by the auditor general of Pakistan (AGP) and the other - internal audit - on the directive of the respective district or town nazim. They said the special audit under the local government ordinance 2001 could only be carried out through the auditor general of Pakistan that too on the request of the respective district nazim.

The petitioners alleged that the special audit by the Punjab government was in violation of the law and was politically motivated to harass the elected representatives. They said they had not been given a chance of hearing which was against the principle of natural justice.

The petitioners are Sheikh Rashid Shafique, Rawal Town Nazim; Hamid Nawaz Raja, Potohar Town Nazim; Sardar Saleem, Murree Town Nazim; Tariq Sana, Nazim Data Ganj Bakhsh Town Lahore; Cahudhry Mohammad Ashraf, Nazim Aziz Bhatti Town Lahore; Imtiaz Ali Dar, Town Nazim Sialkot; Rai Arif Mansab Ali, Nazim Shah Rukan-i-Alam Town Multan; Mian Ijaz Amir, Town Nazim Rahim Yar Khan; Syed Noorul Hassan, UC Nazim in Chiniot; Amjad Hussain, former TMO Data Gnaj Bakhsh Town, and Ijaz Haider, director in the provincial government.

The same bench of the LHC had earlier taken up the petitions in Lahore but later transferred them to the Rawalpindi bench.

Meanwhile, Justice Abdul Shakoor Paracha of the LHC put off hearing of five election petitions till November 21 after issuing fresh notices in two cases and adjourning the others on the requests of the respective lawyers.

The court issued notices to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) MNA Sheikh Aftab Ahmed from NA-57 (Attock-I) in the petition of Malik Amin Aslam after no response was filed with the court to the earlier notices. Malik Amin with 38,392 votes in the February 18 general elections has challenged the victory of Sheikh Aftab, who obtained 38,755. The court also served fresh notices in the petition of Dr Sher Afghan Niazi challenging the success of Humair Hayat Rokhari from NA-72 (Mianwali-II).

In the other three election petitions, Raja Mohammad Ali has challenged the success of Col (retired) Shabbir Awan in PP-2 (Rawalpindi-II), Sardar Mumtaz Khan Bosal has questioned the success of Malik Itbar Khan in PP-19 (Attock-V) and Sardar Zulfiqar Ali Khan has objected to the victory of Khurram Nawab in PP-2 (Chakwal-III).