PESHAWAR, Aug 13: The Peshawar High Court on Monday expressed annoyance at the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s failure to act upon its orders for replacement of broken water pipes and installation of incinerators in the province, and warned to freeze its development funds over further non-compliance of the said orders.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth directed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) director general Dr Mohammad Bashir and additional advocate general Naveed Akhtar to ensure implementation of the said orders by Sept 18.

The bench told Dr Bashir that a member of the court’s inspection team would accompany him to check all pipes of drinking water in the provincial capital and submit report to the court about progress on its replacement as per order of the court.The chief justice regretted that from time to time they had been issuing orders related to environmental degradation but the relevant authorities had become indifferent towards the court orders.

The bench observed that the secretaries of transport, irrigation, public health engineering, planning and development and local bodies departments and the EPA director general should pay heed to the orders of the court otherwise the court would be left with no other option but to freeze their development funds.

It observed that if any death occurred due to the non-implementation of the court orders, then the relevant official would be punished for that.

Last year, the court had taken suo motu notice of the environmental degradation in the provincial capital and other cities and issued a detailed order on June 16, 2011. It had directed the provincial government to replace all broken drinking water pipes within six months and to install incinerators at proper places across the province for proper waste disposal. It had also asked traffic police to impound all those vehicles emitting excessive smoke, causing severe air pollution.

In Nov 2011, the court had ordered the government to restore the historical significance of Shahi Bagh by removing all the unnecessary structures constructed over it.

It had directed the provincial chief secretary to convene a special meeting of the secretaries under his control and a detailed agenda be formulated for the meeting to address the hostile mischief posing threat to human life.

Dr Bashir, who appeared on court’s notice, had to face difficult time in convincing the court that his department had taken several steps in accordance with the court orders. He stated that so far they had issued notices to medical superintendents of 10 hospitals for improper disposal of hospital wastes.

He said a notice had also been issued to an executive engineer of the irrigation department for non-sanitation of canals. He added that fine was imposed on four town councils for improper sanitation facilities in respective towns.

The chief justice asked Dr Bashir what step they had taken to check pollution in the Kohat Tunnel as its exhaust system was non-functional. He observed that the court had taken notice of the issue as thousands of vehicles had daily been passing through said tunnel and now the exhaust systems had been installed by the government.

The chief justice said it was primarily the responsibility of EPA to take notice of such like issues.

The bench also directed the DG that all brick kilns emitting smoke through exhaust pipes, should be checked along with other industries emitting similar smoke and proper safeguards should be adopted, making it compulsory for them to install and cap it with filtration equipments so that the air pollution so caused was prevented to the maximum.

The court directed AAG Naveed Akhtar to provide updated position about the historical Shahi Bagh as the court had in clear terms ordered that all the unnecessary structures and encroachments should be positively removed from the park.