MANSEHRA: The Peshawar High Court’s Abbottabad Circuit Bench on Wednesday restored former president of the Mansehra District Bar Association Amir Khan Swati to his office by setting aside an order of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council to remove him.

The two member’s bench comprising Justice Lal Jan Khattak and Justice Ahmad Ali set aside removal of president district bar association.

The bar council had removed the bar association’s president last week over failure to produce details of the association’s latest income and expenditure, and asked the vice-president to manage the affairs of the vacant office’s on provisional basis.

The council had also frozen the association’s bank accounts adversely affecting its affairs. Mr Amir Swati challenged the move in the high court.

A PHC Circuit Bench consisting of Justice Lal Jan Khattak and Justice Ahmad Ali accepted his petition by setting aside the bar council’s order for his removal as the president of the Mansehra district bar association.

Mr Swati told reporters here that under the rules, the bar council couldn’t ask him as the bar president to put up the income and expenditure records to it.

LANDOWNERS WARN: The residents of Saungar area in Balakot tehsil have warned that they will not give away their land and houses for a 300 megawatts hydropower project if the government doesn’t offer their market rate.

“The district administration has imposed Section 4 of Land Acquisition Act, 1894, to acquire land and houses without taking us into confidence. Now if it goes ahead with its land acquisition plan and doesn’t offer us the market price for our agricultural land and houses, we will put up strong resistance,” Naeem Ashraf Durrani told a news conference in Balakot area on Wednesday.

Leading the landowners, Mr Durrani said hundreds of families would be displaced and would lose agricultural land and houses due to the hydropower project’s execution, so the government should meet their demands before launching work.

DROWNED: A three-year-old girl drowned in the Siren River in Muradpur area here on Wednesday.

Hijab fell into the river while crossing a wooden bridge with her brother.

Published in Dawn, November 7th, 2019