PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Thursday extended a stay order of restraining Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government from utilising funds for execution of umbrella schemes in Annual Development Programme (ADP).

A bench consisting of Justice Sahibzada Asadullah and Justice Wiqar Ahmad again sought reply of the provincial government to a petition of opposition members of the provincial assembly against the umbrella schemes in ADP.

The leader of opposition in provincial assembly, Ibadullah Khan, MPA Arbab Waseem Khan and 17 other opposition lawmakers have filed a joint petition, requesting the high court to declare it illegal and also set aside the schemes included in ADP under umbrella or block allocation.

They also prayed the court to strike down all directives issued by the chief minister regarding umbrella schemes after the passage of 2024-25 annual budget.

The petitioners sought court’s orders for the government to formulate, implement and distribute developmental schemes and release funds for them in line with the law, rules, guidelines and superior court’s judgements.

They also requested the court to order authorities not to discriminate against them and sought interim relief in the form of suspension of t chief minister’s orders for umbrella schemes until the petition was decided.

The petitioners belong to opposition parties including Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl, Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Parliamentarians and Awami National Party.

The respondents in the petition are the KP government through its chief secretary, chief minister, his principal secretary, additional chief secretary and the secretaries of finance, communication and works, irrigation, planning and development and public health engineering departments.

Barrister Sultan Mohammad Khan and Babar Khan Yousafzai appeared for the petitioners whereas additional advocate general Rauf Afridi represented the provincial government.

The AAG stated that he would file reply on behalf of the government.

He stated that the government and opposition members had been in contact over the issue.

Barrister Sultan also hoped that the issue would resolve amicably.

In the petition, the petitioners insisted that the ‘illegal’ actions of the respondents clearly violated the Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Procedure and Conduct of Business Rules, 1988, and KP Government Rules of Business, 1985, as well as the policy guidelines issued by the government in consequence of a high court judgement.

They said that the chief minister under the name of ‘CM Directives’ was doling out public funds to his political favourites despite the fact that such practice of arbitrary one man discretionary power had been declared consistently illegal by superior courts including PHC.

They have also given a table in the petition wherein 15 of the umbrella schemes had been mentioned related to upgradation and rehabilitation of roads, small drinking water supply, construction of flood protection, irrigation channels and installation of solar tube-wells, district development plans for different districts.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2024