LAHORE: The civil society has filed a petition before the Supreme Court asking it to review its decision allowing the Punjab government to resume work on the Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) project subject to certain conditions.

The petition filed at the Lahore registry of the apex court through Advocate Azhar Siddique stated that a larger bench of the Supreme Court had ignored all points mentioned in Lahore High Court’s judgement staying the project on 11 heritage sites. It alleged that the Punjab government misled the apex court and concealed facts about the project. The points mentioned by the Supreme Court bench about protection and safety of heritage sites/monuments were insufficient, it added.

The petition claimed that the monuments were still at stake despite 31 conditions enforced by the apex court for construction work on the metro train project. It further stated that the provincial government was not following the directions of the SC in this regard.

The petition maintained that all relevant departments had been conveyed about the possible dangers to the heritage sites falling on the route of the metro train. It asked the court to review its majority decision and restrain the government from carrying out the project till final decision of the review. It pleaded that the majority opinion had errors and mistakes floating on the surface and the reasons presented by minority opinion had not been addressed and rebutted by the majority opinion.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2018