LAHORE, Aug 22: The Lahore High Court questioned on Friday the legality of the local government secretary’s notification through which he had stopped Data Ganj Bakhsh Town Nazim Khwaja Ahmad Hassaan from holding his office, and extended the suspension of this notification till Sept 3.

Justice Mian Hamid Farooq, who took up the petition after it was refused to be heard by Justice M Javed Buttar, overruled the provincial government’s objection to the earlier interim order regarding the restoration of Khwaja Hassaan’s office and one-day suspension of the notification ordered by another judge.

“What difference will it make if the notification remains suspended till the next date of hearing? he asked. The prime concern of the court was to adjudge how could the secretary issue this notification under Section 197 of the Punjab Local Government Ordinance 2001,” the judge observed in response to the argument of Punjab Advocate-General Syed Shabbar Raza Rizvi made against the suspension of the notification.

Following the court’s query about the notification’s legality, the AG raised a point that under Article 199 (4) of the 1973 Constitution, no court could issue even an interim order without hearing the federal or provincial law officer. The order issued on Thursday lacked legal force, as no such opportunity was provided to any law officer, he argued.

He pleaded that he needed time to prepare himself for the legal propositions raised in the petition, and assured that he would satisfy the court regarding the secretary’s action on the next hearing because he had not been put under notice in this petition and had come to court on his own after reading the Thursday’s proceedings in the newspapers.

“I will either refer the petition to another bench already having identical petitions, as I won’t be available before the next month, or the petitioner should wait for me till the first week of September with the notification remains suspended,” Justice Farooq placed an option before the petitioner.

However, petitioner’s counsel Umar Atta Bandiyal chose the first option saying he had full faith and trust in the court, and won’t mind if the AG was given two weeks for the preparation provided the suspension of the impugned notification would remain there.

Earlier, while arguing the merits of the petition, the counsel submitted that legal procedure as described in the PLG Ordinance 2001 regarding the adoption of a no-trust motion against the town Nazim was not followed at all, making the entire exercise illegal.

Mr Bandiyal submitted that voting on the motion was to be held by the Punjab Local Election Authority since it was the relevant authority, and the motion was also supposed to be approved by the district Nazim.

“Nothing such happened in this case, as the district Nazim neither placed the motion before the house nor did he disclose the reasons for moving the motion to the house. Rather he opted to make a press statement, which has no legal recognition,” he argued.