PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Thursday reserved judgment on four petitions challenging the bifurcation of Kohistan district through amendments to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act 2013.

Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Roohul Amin Khan fixed Jan 19 for pronouncing the verdict.

The bench heard arguments of all parties, including petitioners, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa advocate general Abdul Lateef Yousafzai and lawyer for some elders from Pattan tehsil who supported the district’s bifurcation.

The petitions were filed by MPA Maulana Asmatullah and seven former nazims of different local councils of Kohistan, including former district nazim Maulana Obaidur Rehman.

Barrister Masood Kausar, Imtiaz Ali and other lawyers representing the petitioners requested the bench to declare illegal the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government (second amendment) Act, 2015, through which amendments were made to the KPLGA.

They also prayed the court to declare two impugned notifications issued prior to the controversial amendments on Jan 15, 2014, and Feb 7, 2014, as unconstitutional.

Respondents in the petition were the revenue secretary, provincial government through the chief secretary, local government secretary, commissioner of Hazara division, deputy commissioner of Kohistan and deputy secretary of the revenue department.

Barrister Masood Kausar said last year, the petitioners had filed a petition challenging the creation of Lower Kohistan district through the two impugned notifications and that case was still pending with the court.

He said the provincial government made amendments to the KPLGA through the impugned Act which was passed by the provincial assembly on Feb 17, 2015.

The lawyer said through the said amendment, changes were made to Section 7 of the Act and thereafter, 23 of the 39 wards in Kohistan district were included in Lower Kohistan district, while the rest were made part of Upper Kohistan district.

He argued that through the said two impugned notifications issued in 2014, whereby certain tribal areas of Kohistan district were included in the illegally constituted Lower Kohistan district was unconstitutional.

The lawyer said Article 246 of the Constitution mentioned the “tribal areas in Kohistan” as part of the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas.

Advocate general Abdul Lateef Yousafzai, appearing for provincial government, and advocate Abdul Lateef Afridi, representing elders of Pattan tehsil, which is made the district headquarters of the new Kohistan Lower district, opposed the petitions and contended that the provincial government was fully competent to curve out new district from an existing one.

Published in Dawn, December 18th, 2015