LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday sought further arguments from the counsel for the local government representatives on maintainability of a petition that demanded retrospective effect of the restoration of their offices by the Supreme Court and a restraining order against issuance of schedule for the next LG polls in the province.

During the hearing, a law officer of the Punjab government opposed the petition for being not maintainable.

Justice Jawad Hassan asked the petitioners’ counsel to establish with arguments as to how the restored LG representatives were eligible to claim 22 months in lieu of the time lost on account of their dissolution.

The counsel argued that the apex court had declared their dissolution illegal and allowed to complete their five-year term.

The judge directed the counsel to come up with more arguments in light of the judgements as to how the petitioners could be given 22 months in lieu of the dissolution period. The judge was also told that a contempt of court petition against the government was also pending with the SC.

The judge would resume hearing next week.

Lahore city’s lord mayor retired Col Mubashir Javed and other representatives of the local government filed the petition.

They submitted that the provincial government failed to restore the local governments despite the Supreme Court’s detailed judgement in the matter. They said the SC had ordered restoration of local bodies in the province after declaring their dissolution as unconstitutional. The petitioners asked the court to declare that the term of office of a LG formed under article 140-A of the Constitution and Punjab Local Government Act (PLGA) 2013 was five years which a LG was sanctioned to complete.

They urged the court to restrain the government from announcing election schedule in the province till final decision of the petition.

On March 25, a three-judge bench of the SC had ordered the restoration of local bodies in the province after declaring their dissolution unconstitutional.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2021