PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has given the provincial government a fortnight’s time to respond to a petition seeking action over the unauthorised use of official helicopters.

Senior lawyers Sardar Nasir Aslam Khan and Mohammad Masoom Shah jointly challenged legislation by the last provincial assembly for “protecting the misuse” of government choppers.

Hearing the petition, a high court bench consisting of Justice Roohul Amin Khan and Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan declared that as the provisions of the KP Ministers (Salaries, Allowances and Privileges) (Second Amendment) Act, 2022, were related to the use of aircraft and helicopters by the chief minister, adviser or special assistant to the chief minister and other government officials at state expenses, a notice was required to be given to the advocate general under Order XXVII-A of the Code of Civil Procedure.

It also ordered the clubbing of that petition with another filed on the matter by parliamentary leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz in the last provincial assembly Sardar Mohammad Yousaf.

Lawyers challenge legislation on matter insisting it is meant to protect lawmakers

Next hearing into both petitions will be fixed later.

Petitioners Sardar Nasir and Mohammad Masoom requested the court to direct the provincial chief secretary to proceed with the inquiry or investigation into the matter and take the proceedings to their logical conclusion.

They also sought orders declaring the amendments to the KP Ministers (Salaries, Allowances and Privileges) Act, 1975, through the KP Ministers (Salaries, Allowances and Privileges) (Second Amendment) Act, 2022, especially its Section 7-B.

The petitioners prayed the court to declare that the legislation in question was based on mala fide motives giving retrospective effect to the changes in the law with effect from Nov 1, 2008, to the commencement of the impugned Act i.e. Dec 30, 2022.

The respondents in the petition are the last provincial assembly’s speaker, the relevant minister who initiated the bill for amending the law, the chief secretary, and the director-general of the National Accountability Bureau, KP.

Petitioner Sardar Nasir argued that prima facie the impugned amendment had been introduced in order to protect the illegal, unauthorised and dishonest use of the public helicopters, which were the property of the KP government.

He said the NAB KP had initiated inquiry into the misuse of the government asset being public property and had referred the matter to the chief secretary along with a list of persons who had subjected the helicopters to illegal use along with details of the amount to be recovered against each one of them.

The petitioner, however, contended that instead of taking any action and recovery of the due amounts from the relevant people, the provincial government to protect the violation and misconduct opted for the impugned amendments to the law.

He argued that the NAB KP had clearly instructed provincial authorities to take legal action against all concerned and recover from them the amount spent on the illegal helicopter use.

Mr Sardar Nasir argued that the impugned legislation was also bad due to the retrospective effect given to it with the malicious intention of protecting interests of the relevant people, mostly MPAs, countering the measures proposed by the NAB, and protecting Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan and others from disqualification under Article 63(P) of the Constitution.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2023