LAHORE, July 2 The Lahore High Court on Thursday restored the officiating Mianwali tehsil nazim and 18 members of the tehsil council by suspending the order of the local government secretary.

Justice Khalid Alvi also admitted the petition of officiating tehsil nazim Mian Muhammad Ashraf for a regular hearing and issued a notice to the local government secretary observing that prima facie the secretary had no authority to remove the elected persons from their offices under the Punjab Local Government Ordinance 2001.

The petitioner submitted that he had taken over as acting nazim of Mianwali tehsil under Section 63 of the LG Ordinance after tehsil nazim Amjad Ali Khan resigned from his office in April this year. The tehsil council, comprising 18 UC nazims, also allowed him to officiate as nazim till the election.

The Punjab government, however, restrained him from working as officiating tehsil nazim on April 29. He challenged the order in the LHC but his petition was dismissed. He filed an intra-court appeal and a division bench allowed him to continue as officiating nazim.

The petitioner submitted that the Punjab local government secretary had conducted an inquiry on the complaint of UC nazim Syed Abbas Shah and held that the members of tehsil council who had voted in his favour had committed misconduct and ordered their suspension.

Interestingly, this was first hearing of the case and the court had not issued notice to the Punjab government, but law officer Wali Muhammad Khan made appearance on his own and defended government's decision.

REPLY SOUGHT The Lahore High Court on Thursday sought a reply from provincial information secretary Shoaib bin Aziz and Punjab Entertainment Company chairman Sami Saad in a contempt case filed against them by the former managing-director of the PEC.

Petitioner Fazal Asif Jah contended that he was removed from the office of the PEC managing-director. He filed a writ petition with the LHC seeking reimbursement of his arrears to the tune of Rs1,431,290. — Reporter