RAWALPINDI: The Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench on Thursday set aside the judgement of a single judge in the Rawalpindi Ring Road access case after the petitioner withdrew the writ petition with permission to file a fresh one, if required.
This brings an end to the proceedings that had triggered official inquiries and administrative action over an alleged no-objection certificate (NOC) linked to a proposed commercial development along the Ring Road.
A division bench, comprising Justice Sadaqat Ali Khan and Justice Akbar Ali, disposed of three intra-court appeals filed by the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA), the government of Punjab and the Ring Road Authority against the judgement passed in the petition filed by Mazhar Rahim Awan against the RDA and others.
During the hearing, the counsel representing the appellants argued that the impugned judgement had been passed without providing the RDA an opportunity to submit its comments and place its version before the court.
The appellants maintained that this amounted to a denial of the right of hearing and rendered the judgement unsustainable.
The counsel further submitted that the RDA had consistently maintained throughout the proceedings that no official record of the alleged NOC existed. It was also argued that the authority was not legally competent to issue such an NOC for the purpose claimed by the petitioner.
The division bench asked the respondent’s counsel Sheikh Ilyas whether the judgement of the single judge could be sustained in law when it had been passed without hearing the appellant authority. The respondent’s counsel conceded before the court that the judgement could not be defended on that ground.
Justice Sadaqat Ali Khan then observed that this was only one aspect of the appellants’ submissions and questioned whether the judgement could otherwise be sustained and whether the writ petition itself was maintainable under the law.
Following these observations, the respondent’s counsel sought permission to withdraw the writ petition with liberty to file a fresh petition, if required.
Accepting the request, the division bench allowed withdrawal of the petition, set aside the judgement passed by the single judge and disposed of all the three intra-court appeals.
The litigation centred on claims regarding an alleged NOC and a proposed commercial development alongside the Rawalpindi Ring Road.
The controversy had attracted widespread public attention earlier this year after it coincided with an unprecedented administrative reshuffle in Rawalpindi, in which the entire top civil administration of the district was replaced within a single day.
According to official sources, the allegations concerning the alleged NOC and the proposed commercial development were taken seriously by the Punjab government and the relevant authorities after the matter surfaced.
The developments prompted internal inquiries and administrative scrutiny of officials allegedly associated with the case.
The Ring Road project itself has remained one of Punjab’s largest infrastructure schemes and has previously been at the centre of controversy.
An earlier version of the project was scrapped in 2021 after allegations of illegal changes to the alignment intended to benefit private housing societies and commercial interests.
The controversy resulted in the removal of several senior officials and the initiation of multiple investigations before the project was later revived with a revised alignment and administrative framework.
The latest litigation arose against that backdrop, making the alleged issuance of an NOC for commercial development along the Ring Road particularly sensitive.
Government authorities maintained that no such approval had ever been issued by the RDA and insisted that any claim to the contrary was unsupported by the official record.
Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2026