RAWALPINDI, Nov 25: The supervisory role of the provincial government cannot be ignored and if the local governments fail to perform their duties, the province has the lawful jurisdiction to interfere in their administrative affairs.

This was maintained by Punjab government in its intra-court appeal filed with the Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench challenging a decision of the LHC Lahore in which it had barred the provincial government from intruding into the administrative affairs of Chakwal district.

The decision against the Punjab government was given by the Lahore bench of the LHC on the petition of Chakwal nazim who said he was pushed aside by the provincial government while passing the annual district budget.

He had maintained that the provincial government had set aside the budgetary estimates duly passed by the district council and authenticated by the nazim and passed an amended budget with the signature of the district coordination officer in violation of the Local Government Ordinance.

In its appeal, the provincial government said it was a wrong impression that the government could not interfere in the affairs of LGs even if they were not discharging their duties in accordance with rules and regulations.

It said the Chakwal district nazim had failed to pass the annual budget for 2008-09 within the stipulated time - June 31 - and had sent the proposals to the provincial ministry of local governments after the due date, forcing the government to pass the budget itself.

Arguing the case in the division bench of Justices Abdul Shakoor Paracha and Syed Sajjad Hussain Shah, Assistant Advocate General Hasnain Kazim said the court earlier had not taken into consideration certain provisions of law regarding the administrative role of the provincial government.

The court, however, observed that the respondent would be heard briefly before the appeal was admitted for the regular hearing.

Separately, the same bench observed that newspaper reporters could not be summoned in a court as witnesses as they were always secondary source of any news or incident.

Justice Syed Sajjad Hussain Shah was hearing a petition of two men who sought the court’s directive for summoning some reporters of local Urdu dailies along with the employees of a private bank and others in a kidnapping for ransom case registered with the Jhelum police.

The court directed the anti-terrorism court to summon the other witnesses to establish the case of the prosecution.