RAWALPINDI, Aug 1: The Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi bench here on Friday took up the petition of City District Nazim Javed Ikhlas and others against the Punjab government’s decision about special audit of the local governments, and after listening to the arguments put off the hearing till Monday.

Justice Khalil Ahmad of the LHC adjourned the hearing after the counsel for the petitioners maintained in the court that there were three parallel governments – federal, provincial and local – and these governments could not interfere into the administrative affairs of each other.

Making the Punjab government respondent through the secretary Local Government and Community Development and District Coordination Officer (DCO) Rawalpindi, District Nazim Raja Javed Ikhlas, Naib Nazim Afzal Khokhar, Hamid Nawaz Raja (Potohar Town), Siddique Khan (Taxila Town), Rashid Shafique (Rawal Town), Sardar Saleem (Murree Town), Sohail Ashraf (Kallar Syedan Town), Chaudhry Abrar Arshad (Gujar Khan Town), Raja Shehzad Nemat Satti (Kotli Sattian Town) and Tariq Mehmood Murtaza (Kahuta Town) had challenged the April 24 decision of the provincial government about sealing all record and carrying out the special audit of the local governments as “unlawful and unilateral”.

The petitioners maintained that only two types of the audits of the local governments could be conducted.

According to Section 115 of the Punjab Local Government Ordinance (LGO) 2001, a general audit can be carried out under the supervision of Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP); whereas an internal audit can be conducted on the order of the district nazim under section 115-A of LGO.

They maintained that a special audit under the LGO could only be carried out through AGP on the request of a district nazim.

They alleged that the special audit by the Punjab government was in violation of the law and was politically motivated to harass and change the loyalties of the representatives of the people elected through a due legal process. The petitioners said they had not been given an appeal of hearing that was against the principle of natural justice.

The nazims prayed to the LHC to set aside the April 24 order and the provincial government should be barred from harassing the local government representatives.

It may be mentioned here that the petitioners had already moved another petition in the LHC, asking the court to stop the provincial government from interfering into the administrative and financial matters of the local governments, and the court had issued an interim order and fixed the hearing for Monday.