PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Tuesday directed the provincial government to respond to a petition against the release of funds by Mardan’s district administration for a church’s construction on private land.

A bench consisting of Justice Lal Jan Khattak and Justice Shahid Khan issued the order on a petition filed by priest Murad Mushtaq challenging construction of the church by a member of his Christian community, Amanat Masih, on a private plot for which Rs5 million was released by the administration of Mardan district on the recommendations of minority MPA Ravi Kumar.

The petitioner claimed that the MPA was not authorised by the law to make such recommendations.

The bench fixed Aug 9 for next hearing into the case.

The court has already stayed the church’s construction.

Lawyer Shaukat Ghulam appeared for the petitioner and said the administration could not allocate funds for the construction of a private place of worship.

He added that under the rules, a person setting up a church on private land had to declare the property a trust and prepare ‘entitlement documents’ to prove that the property would not be owned by an individual and would belong to Christian community.

He said MPA Ravi Kumar had ordered the release of funds Rs5 million for construction of that church claiming that these were his discretionary funds.

He added that the said MPA could not order release of any such funds as he was neither a minister nor aide to the chief minister.

Advocate Rohit Kumar appeared for Amanat Masih and said the land in question was owned of his client, who had already declared it a trust property for the church’s construction.

He said the church was being built in an area populated by Christians.

Advocate general Shumail Ahmad Butt and additional advocate general Babar Shehzad Imran said the matter was related to the Christian community, which should resolve it by dialogue.

The bench directed them to file comments about the petition on behalf of the government and explain if the funds for the church’s construction were released by the government or not.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2022