LAHORE, Oct 19: A division bench of the Lahore High Court, comprising Justices Mian Saqib Nisar and Fazle Miran Chauhan, on Thursday got Kasur executive district officer Mukhtar Ahmad Naul arrested when found that he was concealing certain facts in the Kasur budget controversy.

The EDO was later let off after he tendered an unconditional apology and holding out an assurance to the court that he would not deceive the court in future.

The court observed during the course of the hearing of an intra-court appeal through which district nazim Rana Mohammad Hayat assailed the Punjab government for not releasing development funds approved in the budget session that bureaucracy had so far proved to be mothers of all the ills and the officialdom had been responsible for disrespecting representatives of the people.

The court observed that civil servants had stopped accommodating people’s representatives and also politicised the National Accountability Bureau although the NAB and other state institutions were under a national duty to promote a culture where the supremacy of elected and democratic institutions was established.

The observations followed the statement of the EDO who, the court found was misstating facts. The court adjourned till Friday (today) further hearing of the ICA through which Rana Hayat submitted that the Kasur district council approved its annual budget in a session held on July 27, but the Punjab government refused to release funds for hundreds of development schemes stating that the budget session was illegal. —Correspondent