PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Wednesday directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa advocate general and Environmental Protection Agency director general to give views on Nov 21 on two identical petitions challenging the much-publicised Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project.

Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Ijaz Anwar Khan was hearing two petitions, one jointly filed by former provincial minister Amanullah haqqani and citizen Wali Khan and the other by environmentalist Abid Zareef, challenging the bus project on multiple grounds.

Advocate Essa Khan appeared for the petitioners, while Abid Zareef appeared in person.

They completed their arguments and requested the bench to declare the BRT project illegal and unconstitutional.

The bench fixed Nov 21 for next hearing directing advocate general Abdul Lateef Yousafzai and EPA DG Dr Mohammad Bashir to put forward their point of view on that date.

Two petitions challenged BRT on multiple grounds

The bench was informed by Essa Khan that a joint venture company which was awarded the contract of one of the BRT portions was blacklisted by the Lahore Development Authority (LDA).

Shumail Ahmad Butt, lawyer for the company, SGEC-Maqbool-Calsons JV, said the petitioner had filed an application in the writ petition wherein unfounded claims were made about his client. He disputed the allegations that the company was blacklisted and contended that the order of the LDA was challenged by the firm in the Lahore High Court, which had on Sep 7, 2017, set aside the government order and declared that the firm was eligible for all sorts of construction projects.

The bench observed that as the AG would be appearing on behalf of provincial government, which had signed the contract with the said firm, and therefore, it would be appropriate that the AG should advance arguments in that regard or the lawyer should argue along with him.

Mr Essa Khan said while the chief minister had claimed that the project would be completed in six months, the agreement signed between the government of Pakistan and Asian Development Bank showed the expected completion of the project by June 30, 2021.

He said the BRT project would cost Rs57 billion, which was a loan obtained from the ADB and to be disbursed by the ADB in three years.

He argued that the Peshawar city district government was also not taken into confidence about this project.

He also questioned the environmental impact of this project saying the EPA had not compiled its final report in this regard and in a haphazard manner an NOC was issued for the project.

He also disputed the public hearing held by the government for ascertaining the environmental impact of the project, saying people were mostly not aware about that public hearing.

Mr Abid Zareef argued that initially, the government claimed that the project would be completed at the cost of Rs35 billion, but later, it was claimed that it would require around Rs57 billion and in some documents, the total cost of the project was mentioned as Rs61 billion.

He said the government had earlier developed greenbelts at the cost of millions of rupees and had uprooted the same green belts for this project, which would leave a negative impact on the environment.

The petitioner also said the project was not feasible for security reasons as it would create hurdles to the smooth mobility of the armed forces in the area.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2017