RAWALPINDI, Oct 21: The Lahore High Court (LHC), Rawalpindi Bench, has sought a complete report from Cabinet Division secretary and Capital Development Authority chairman for not holding local government elections in Islamabad.

The writ petition regarding delay in holding of local bodies polls in the federal capital has been filed by renowned lawyer M. Kokab Iqbal. The Cabinet Division secretary and the CDA chairman have been made respondents in the petition.

After preliminary hearing, the LHC judge Justice Sardar Mohammad Aslam directed the respondents to submit a detailed report and para-wise comments on as to why the local governments system had not been implemented in the Islamabad Capital Territory limits.

The petitioner has argued in his petition that local government elections had been held throughout the country but people of the federal capital were denied the right to elect their representatives at local level where, he said, the CDA bureaucracy rules supreme.

The petitioner pleaded that the CDA had neither done any development work nor opened any new sector during the last 15 years. Only recently, he said, the prime minister ordered the CDA to open new sectors.

The petition further stated that the CDA had only been selling commercial plots and public land, amassing billions of rupees. People do not know how and where these funds are being spent, it added.

Officials of the authority, the petition said, had been minting money in collaboration with property dealers and contractors and had allowed construction of high-rise apartment blocks and towers in posh sectors of F-10 and F-11.

Advocate Kokab Iqbal prayed before the LHC judge that directives be issued to the federal government to make arrangements for implementing the local government system in Islamabad and announce elections for the same without further delay.

He also requested the court that the CDA be restrained from violating the original scheme and the master plan of Islamabad.