LAHORE: A civil court has suspended several tenders of different construction works issued by the Metropolitan Corporation Lahore allegedly in violation of a Supreme Court’s judgement.

The court passed the stay order on a petition filed by former lord mayor retired Col Mubashar Javed challenging the legality of the tenders issued by the corporation.

On behalf of the petitioner, Advocate Awais Khalid contended that his client was elected Lahore’s mayor in an election under Punjab Local Government Act 2013 held during 2015-16 for a term of five years.

He said the government dissolved the local government system in 2019, however, the Supreme Court restored the same in March 2021. The respondent corporation advertised the tenders for different construction works in the city after the decision of the apex court.

He said the issuance of the tenders by the respondent was a clear violation of Article 140 of the Constitution and various provisions of the local government law. He asked the court to suspend the impugned tenders for being issued unlawfully and in violation of the Constitution.

In his order, Civil Judge Mudassar Hassan observed that issuance of the impugned tenders after the restoration of the petitioner through the SC judgement prima facie showed mala fide of the respondents.

He observed that the office of the petitioner had been restored by the apex court and it was his right to issue the tender notices instead of the respondents.

The judge suspended the tender notices and maintained a status quo till the next date of hearing to be fixed after the Eid holidays.

Published in Dawn, May 11th, 2021