LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has ruled that the term of the local bodies’ posts under the Punjab Local Government Act of 2013 is fixed and not extendable.

“It is obvious that the word term mentioned in section 30(1) of the Act of 2013 is fixed and definite in its nature,” Justice Jawad Hassan maintains in his detailed verdict on petitions by the LG representatives. The judge had dismissed the petitions on Dec 17.

Lord Mayor retired Col Mubashir Javed and others had requested the court to include in their term the period that was consumed during dissolution of the Act of 2013 till restoration of the local bodies by the Supreme Court on March 25, 2021 that comes to almost 22 months.

The judge observes that a combined reading of section 30(1) and section 126 of the Act of 2013 makes it quite clear that if any local government is elected for a period of five years, the said period would be governed by section 30(1) of the Act of 2013 and it would start on the date of first meeting of the elected government. And this provision is subject to other provisions of the Act of 2013, which empowers the provincial government to dissolve the local government under section 126 of the same law.

The judge notes that the first meeting of the elected local governments under the Act of 2013 was held on Jan 2, 2017 and the term of holding office for five years started from that date which would expire after completing five years. However, the local government constituted under the 2013 law was dissolved on May 4, 2019 due to promulgation of the new Act through section 3 and the same was restored by the SC and a notification issued on Oct 17, 2021 by the LG department and they started performing their functions.

The judge remarks that in political theory “term of office” and “tenure of office” are terms oftentimes contrasted with each other. Term of office refers to the period, either fixed by the Constitution or a statute, within which a public official may hold office.

He says tenure of office, on the other hand, is the period within which a public official actually held office within a prescribed term. In other words, term of office is fixed, while tenure of office is variable.

Justice Hassan observes that the word ‘term’ mentioned in section 30(1) of the 2013 Act is fixed and definite in its nature. He notes that the time for holding an office for a period of five years is not extendable by any means, which would commence on a date of the first meeting of the members/representative of local government, which in case of the petitioners was held on Jan 1, 2017 and the same would expire on Dec 31, 2021.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2021