RAWALPINDI, July 21: Justice Mohammad Akhtar Shabbir of the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court on Thursday set aside Punjab government’s notifications regarding bifurcation of Rawalpindi tehsil into two towns and delimitation of four union councils. Justice Shabbir passed a short order to the extent of accepting the writ petitions which had challenged the bifurcation of Rawalpindi tehsil into Rawal and Potohar towns, setting aside the impugned order of Punjab government of June 24 regarding bifurcation.

He directed the petitioners to appear before the Punjab secretary, local government, on July 23, who would after listening to them, act according to the parameters set by the court and issue a revised notification.

Shah Khawar advocate appeared as the counsel for the petitioners Babu Riaz, Nasir Mir and Raja Amir Azeem. Whereas, the provincial government was represented in the case by assistant advocates general Raja Saeed Akram and Muddasir Khalid Abbasi.

After hearing both sides, seeing the maps and going through the record, the judge observed that Rawalpindi tehsil’s bifurcation was clearly an unnatural division, with newly constituted Potohar Town comprising three parts that were not contiguous with each other. Justice Shabbir also observed that the actual basis for division of Rawalpindi tehsil was Murree Road.

Since the orders of the provincial government for the setting up of city district government Rawalpindi with effect from July 1 have been set aside, the previous position prevails.

The petitioners had contended that the distribution of UCs into two towns, Rawal and Potohar, under the Punjab government’s notification was in violation of Article 9 of Punjab Local Government Ordinance 2001, which provides that the government through a notification in official gazette may declare a whole number of geographically contiguous UCs to be a town under the city district government.

However, four UCs 1, 2, 36 and 46 that are contiguous with each other and rest of the Rawal Town were illegally made part of Potohar Town to politically benefit a certain group though a wide area of cantonment separated these UCs from Potohar Town.