LAHORE, July 29: Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed of the Lahore High Court on Friday issued a notice to the Punjab Environment Protection Department for a report on sending the cases of two industries to an environment tribunal for violation of quality standards.

The writ petitions will now be taken up after summer vacation. During the period the stay order issued in favour of the industries will hold the ground.

The court also deferred till September the question of allowing amendments to one of the petitions through which the petitioner has sought that the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act of 1997 be declared as null and void for being in conflict with a number of provisions of the Constitution.

Moved by Advocate Ali Sibtain Fazli, the amended petition contended that the sections 20, 21 and 22 of the act, legislated by the National Assembly in December 1997, were in conflict with the articles 175 and 203 of the Constitution in the establishment of environmental courts which were not within the jurisdiction and administrative discipline of high courts.

Similarly, according to the petition, the act envisaged the setting up of environmental tribunals in clear contravention of the Constitution because they were not established under articles 212 and 225 spelling out such tribunals.

A writ petition was moved a few months ago originally to challenge the Punjab Environment Protection Agency’s sending the case of a tannery at Kala Shah Kaku to an environment tribunal on the charge that the industry had failed to install waste water and chrome recovery treatment plants and, thus, had the potential to pollute air and cause environmental degradation.

The industry challenged the act of the PEPA through a writ petition.