PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Thursday issued a notice to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, seeking its response to a petition of 22 local body heads against the decision to release development funds to 56 of the total 131 tehsil councils in the province.

A bench consisting of Justice Sahibzada Asadullah and Justice Wiqar Ahmad issued the order after preliminary hearing into the petition.

The petitioners, including Mardan city mayor Himayatullah Mayar, Dir tehsil council chairman Rafiullah and 20 other tehsil council mayors and chairmen, requested the court to declare illegal the finance department’s Dec 5 order about the release of development funds to 56 tehsil councils under the Provincial Finance Commission Award.

They requested the court to direct the government to ensure that under the PFC Award, an impartial release of funds should be held throughout the province including to the petitioners and other remaining tehsil councils.

Local council heads had challenged finance dept’s order on release of uplift funds

The petitioners also sought interim relief, saying during pendency of the petition, the respondents including the KP government should be restrained from distribution of funds issued through the impugned order.

The government ordered release of funds mostly to tehsil councils, which have the ruling PTI’s members as mayors and chairmen.

The petition named the provincial government through its chief secretary and local government and finance secretaries as respondents.

Lawyer for the petitioners Babar Khan Yousafzai said that his clients were elected tehsil council mayors and chairmen in elections conducted for local governments, held on Dec 19, 2021, and March 31, 2022.

He added that Article 140-A of the Constitution provided that each province should establish a local government system and devolve political, administrative and financial responsibility and authority to the elected representatives of the local government.

The counsel said that Chapter VIII of the KP Local Government Act, 2013, related to local government finances and particularly, Section 30 provided for establishment of local funds in public accounts, whereas Section 31 described the operation of funds and public accounts.

He said that the Act further provided for PFC Award and fiscal transfers and it was an enactment similar to transfer of funds by the federal government to the provinces under the National Finance Commission Award.

Mr Yousafzai said that since the elections were held in 2021 and 2022, no funds in respect of PFC Award, and even fiscal transfers had been released for development to tehsil local government.

He added that 131 tehsils had been deprived of PFC allocation since their elections, but on Dec 5, the impugned order was issued for releasing funds to 56 of the tehsils, whereas remaining 75 had been discriminated against and was not included in the order.

The lawyer argued that as per the PFC Award, the provincial government was obligated to allocate 20 per cent of its share to the local government in any fiscal year.

He said that the government had been withholding those funds for the last three years, while recently, it, through the impugned order, selected 56 of the councils for funding.

Mr Yousafzai contended that the KP City and Tehsil Local Government Rules, 2022, empowered mayors and chairmen to manage affairs of their councils, which also included overseeing development within their respective tehsils.

He added that allocation of funds exclusively to selected tehsils of the provincial government’s choice formed discrimination and violated articles 4, 9 and 25 of the Constitution.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2024