PESHAWAR: The Tourism Corporation Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has challenged the imminent leasing of the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation properties before the Peshawar High Court insisting the proposed act is unconstitutional.

In the petition, the TCKP managing director prayed the court to declare illegal and unlawful the newspaper advertisements inviting bids for the leasing out of the PTDC properties, which were devolved to the provinces after the 18th Constitutional Amendment.

He also requested the court to stop the PTDC from leasing out the devolved properties situated in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa until the final disposal of the petition.

The petitioner said in pursuance to the Constitution (Eighteenth Amendment) Act 2010, the concurrent legislative list was abolished and accordingly all the subjects of the said list were devolved to the provinces.

He said in the process, the PTDC attached with federal ministry of tourism was abolished and devolved to provinces, whereas the attached formations of the devolved ministry located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including Pakistan Austrian Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management, Department of Tourism Services and Malam Jabba Resort Limited etc were transferred to the province.

The petitioner said for transition period the PTDC was placed under the federal ministry of IPC for settlement of certain issues before transferring to the provincial governments.

He said consequent upon the devolution, the 75th and 76th meeting of the Board of Directors of PTDC were held on Oct 19, 2011, and Apr 4, 2013 respectively in which winding up of PTDC and transfer of its assets to the respective federating units on location basis along with employees to their respective provinces on domicile basis were approved.

The petitioner said despite the passage of 18th Constitutional Amendment and clear decisions taken by the Board of Directors of PTDC, in the Inter-Provincial Coordination division the transfer process was not actualised till date and the respondents were using delaying tactics in handing/ taking over of the PTDC properties located in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other federating units.

The petitioner claimed the management of PTDC especially its managing director and project engineer recently in clear departure to the constitutional provisions and violation of settled decisions of the BoD of PTDC issued advertisements in two newspapers inviting bids for leasing out the PTDC properties for 30 years.

The height of illegality, the petitioner stated, could be gauged from the fact that PTDC had also included in its list of properties in the impugned advertisement for long lease the three properties owned by the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Motels at Kalam, Miandam and Naran) which were leased out to PTDC in 1987 for a period of 30 years and the said lease period would expire in 2017, where after these three properties would be reverted to the province.

The petitioner said on Aug 7, 2014, a notification was issued by the federal government through which the PTDC was brought under the administrative control of the Cabinet Division, which was also illegal and contrary to the clauses 8 and 9 of Article 270AA of the Constitution.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2014