LAHORE: A Lahore High Court division bench issued on Wednesday a notice to the Punjab government on an intra court appeal challenging the alleged misappropriation and wastage of public money in the Bab-i-Pakistan project.

The bench, consisting of Justice Ayesha A Malik and Justice Faisal Zaman, was hearing the appeal by Opposition Leader in the Punjab Assembly Mian Mahmoodur Rashid.

Advocate Sheraz Zaka appeared on behalf of the appellant and argued that the construction of the project had been completed by 60 per cent. He said the contract of the project had already been granted to Amjad Mukhtar Associates Limited regarding architectural consultancy services in 1991.

The counsel said the government was going to demolish the 60 per cent construction work to start the project afresh and awarding contract on its own whims to some other consultant. He said the government action amounted to waste taxpayers’ money.

An assistant advocate general raised objection that the intra court appeal filed against the order of a single bench was time barred as it had to be filed in 20 days.

The petitioner’s counsel said the time consumed in obtaining a certified copy of the impugned order of the single bench was to be excluded from limitation period of 20 days for filing the appeal.

The bench observed that the question would also be settled once for all that whether time taken to obtain certified copies of impugned orders would be excluded from the limitation period.

The bench issued notices to the government and adjourned hearing for a month.

Published in Dawn, July 21st, 2016