LHC releases detailed judgement of Signal Free Corridor

A Lahore High Court (LHC) full bench comprising Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Muhammad Yawar Ali and Justice Ayesha A Malik on Wednesday released detailed judgment in Signal Free Corridor Project case.

Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, who was heading the bench, authored the 110-pages judgment. The bench noted that the petitioners, in impugning the project, had raised various grounds of attack, including violation of Environmental Protection Laws by the authorities concerned, the absurdity and irrationality of the project and usurpation upon the functions of local government by the Lahore Development Authority (LDA).

The full bench while dilating upon the concept of environmental justice observed that environmental justice was embedded in the fundamental rights enshrined in the constitution.

While evaluating the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the project, the bench noted that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was a regulator tasked with the responsibility to protect the environment, however, it was operating under a director general (DG) who was a civil servant appointed by the provincial government and thus it was being controlled and dictated by the parties it regulated, (in this case the provincial government) thus, the EPA was under regulatory capture.

The bench went on to highlight the importance of EIA and held that the EIA was not independently reviewed by EPA being captured and beleaguered and that the review process was deficient in material particulars and could not be sustained, thus, the bench set aside the EIA approval of the project.

The bench exhaustively thrashed out the conceptual frameworks of Local Government System while tracing the history of Local Government System in Pakistan.

The bench also comparatively analyzed the Local Government Systems of South Africa, India and Pakistan. The bench then embarked upon a fruitful discussion upon the scope of Article 140A of the Constitution of Pakistan, while examining the concepts of federalism, local government, democracy, devolution and subsidiary.

The bench ultimately came to a conclusion in this respect that the Local Government System, while drawing its design and recognition from the constitution, draws its powers from the provincial legislature.

“However, the executive authority of the provincial government in the absence of any legislation could not extend to the affairs of the local government which operated under a legislative structure”, it added.

The bench then examined the vires of various provisions of Lahore Development Authority Act, 1975 and held that the powers and functions of Lahore Development Authority (LDA) under Sections 6, 13, 13A, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 23, 24, 28, 34A, 34B, 35, 38 and 46 of the LDA Act 1975 to the extent they usurped, trumped, encroached, diluted and abridged the powers and responsibilities devolved on to the representative of the Local Government System under Article 140A of the Constitution through Punjab Local Government Act, 2013 were ultra vires Articles 9, 14, 17, 25, 32, 37(I) and 140A of the Constitution.

The full bench also struck down the initiation of the Signal Free Corridor Project by LDA being declaring it unconstitutional. The bench further directed National Accountability Bureau to initiate an enquiry against the LDA director general (DG) and EPA DG, for failing to comply with the law and to account for the loss of public money to the tune of Rs 60 million. The petitions were allowed in the above terms.