KARACHI, May 14 The Sindh High Court stayed on Thursday the execution of 22 development projects in the district of Thatta at the request of the district nazim.

Petitioner nazim Shafqat Hussain Shah Shirazi submitted through Advocate Akhtar Hussain that 54 projects presented by him were approved by the district council for the 2008-2009 budget last year.

The district co-ordination officer, however, arbitrarily changed the budget and incorporated 22 new projects in place of the approved ones.

The executive district officer (finance) appeared for the respondents before a division bench comprising Justices Gulzar Ahmed and Malik Muhammad Aqil and maintained that the projects alleged to have been included in the budget by the district bureaucracy were also approved by the district council. The bench asked both the parties to produce original documents in support of their respective claims on May 22 and restrained further action on the impugned projects in the meantime.

Another division bench consisting of Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Karim Khan Agha issued notices to the census commissioner and the ministry of population for May 21 in a petition moved by district nazim Salim Jan Mazari of the district of Kandhkot and Kashmore and PML-Q (Forward Bloc) MPAs Mir Abid Khan Sundrani and Ghalib Khan Domki.

The petitioners submitted through Advocates Raza Hashmi and Hassaan Sabir that schoolteachers working in the district's schools were selected and trained as enumerators for the forthcoming population census. For some unspecified reason, they said, the enumerators were discharged before they could start their work and teachers from Sukkur and other districts were inducted to act as enumerators in the Kandhkot-Kashmore district.

They requested the court to restore the trained staff from local schools.