QUETTA: The Balo­chistan High Court has declared the allocation of funds for construction of rest houses and sports complexes in the province in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2020-21 illegal on a petition filed by the opposition parties, challenging the allocation.

A division bench of the Balochistan High Court comprising Chief Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail and Justice Abdul Hameed Baloch accepted the constitutional petition of the opposition parties having representation in the Balochistan Assembly. After completing the hearing in the case, it had reserved the judgement.

Chief Justice Man­dokhail while announcing the judgement put a ban on special development initiated by the Balochistan government and also declared allocation of funds for bulldozer hours, construction of rest houses and sports complexes illegal. These projects had been included in the PSDP 2020-21 annual budget by the provincial government.

The court in its verdict maintained that the provincial government had not included a single significant clean water supply project for the province in the budget while no water supply scheme was found in the (PSDP) 2020-21 for Gwadar, Jewani and other areas.

The court observed that the provincial government had proposed various development projects in the PSDP without preparing PC-1 and additional chief secretary of planning and development deliberately included these schemes in the development budget without PC-1, which was illegal and violation of rules.

The court also issued contempt of court notice to the additional chief secretary of planning and development for deliberately including various schemes in the PSDP without preparing PC-1 of the proposed projects.

Senior lawyer Advocate Sajid Tareen filed the petition in the court on behalf of 22 opposition members of the Balochistan Assembly. Advocate General Balo­chistan Arbab Tahir Kasi represented the provincial government in the case.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2020