Islamabad: The Lahore High Court has submitted another petition challenging the establishment of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and other 12 projects including Sahiwal and Thar Col power project.
The Lawyers Foundation for Justice filed the petition yesterday through A K Dogar, submitting that these projects should not be established as they would create environmental problems in the country.
Besides this, the government borrowed 46 billion dollars for these projects, the petitioner maintained.
The petitioner held that China and all other developed countries were shifting their energy production to other sources rather than coal, but it was regrettably being ignored in Pakistan.
He requested the court to order the government to stop these projects.
China-Pakistan economic corridor (CPEC) is a mega project of US$45 billion taking the bilateral relationship between Pakistan and China to new heights.
The economic corridor is about 3000 kilometres long consisting of highways, railways and pipelines that will connect China’s Xinjiang province to rest of the world through Pakistan’s Gwadar port.
WCLA asked to protect national heritage: The Unesco has asked the Walled City of Lahore Authority to protect national heritage, grandeur, custom and beauty of Lahore.
Unesco-Pakistan Director Vibeke Jenson gave this advice on a letter filed by Advocate Azhar Siddique.
She urged the WCLA Director to address grievances shown in the complaint and keep the Unesco updated in this regard.
In her letter to WCLA, the Ms Jenson stated that the walled city was of immense cultural and historic importance and the revival and maintenance of its heritage and architecture according to the relevant conventions and legislations is highly important.
Civil Society had filed an application through Advocate Azhar Siddique highlighting failure of the WCLA to discharge its responsibilities.
The members of the civil society alleged that non-compliance of Walled City Authority Act, 2012, malfunction in formulating the rules and regulations, illegal construction of commercial buildings in walled city and misuse of donation of billion rupees from World Bank was devastating the national heritage.
MPA’s eligibility challenged: A petition was filed in the Lahore High Court, seeking disqualification of Member Provincial Assembly Mian Tariq Mehmood of PML-N for concealing facts in his nomination papers.
Chaudhary Ijaz, a runner-up candidate of PML-Q from PP-113 of Gujrat, filed the petition through his counsel Fayyaz Mehr.
The petitioner stated that Mian Tariq Mehmood had assets in Belgium but he concealed all these facts from the Election Commission of Pakistan while submitting his nomination papers.
He further alleged that Tariq had Belgian passport and residence permit but he did not mention it in his nomination papers which showed his dishonesty.
Thus, he had committed violation of Article 62 and 63 of the Constitution and did not qualify to be member of the provincial legislative assembly, the petitioner stated.
He requested the court to declare Mian Tariq disqualified for holding public office and being member of any assembly.
