Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday ordered the suspension of construction work on the Orange Line Metro Train project within 200 feet of 11 heritage sites in the provincial metropolis and directed to form a review committee to assess the effects of the construction on historical buildings.
The two-member bench of LHC comprising Justice Abid Aziz Sheikh and Justice Shahid Karim issued a long verdict of 83 pages on a petition regarding the impacts of construction on historical buildings and environment.
Since the OLMT project’s execution in September 2015, at least 14 different petitions were filed by the civil society on various grounds including acquisition of lands, transparency in the project and tendering the process.
The verdict issued by the court on Friday was on petition challenging the construction work near 11 historical buildings and its impact on environment.
Court in its verdict, nullifying all the no objection certificates (NOC), and revised NOCs which were obtained for the construction of OLMT.
The case against OLMT project originally began in October 2015, when number of social activists staged protests over destruction of the heritage sites and filed petitions in the LHC. Afterwards, several petitions were filed against the project in December last year.
The court had stopped the government from construction work near eleven historical buildings on January 28 this year while issuing a short order in this regard after holding the proceedings on the petitions. These buildings include Chauburji, Saint Andrew Church, GPO building, tomb of Zeb-un-Nisa, Supreme Court Registry Branch, Aiwan-e-Auqaf, Shalimar Gardens, Budhu ka Awa, tomb of Baba Mauj Daria, Lakshami building , and Shah Chiragh Building.
The court had been hearing lengthy arguments of all parties since the case was started in November last year.
During the last hearing, Punjab Advocate General Shakil-ur-Rehman made final arguments and said that UNESCO had also approved the project and gave a go ahead to the Punjab government to complete the project. He said the government tried its best to maintain everything including environment and historical monuments.
The petitioners’ counsel Advocate Azhar Siddique argued that the UNESCO did not pass any order in the favour of the OMT project and it has nothing to do with other historical monuments except for Shalimar Garden.
He said that this project was a useless one but the government allocated budget of other sectors like education and health to this project while the total budget of this project was equal to the annual budget of the Balochistan province. He prayed the court to nullify the project.
On last hearing, court was assisted by Supreme Court Bar Association President Barrister Syed Ali Zafar in the case who contended that the court can stop the project if it harms the antiquities or monuments.
It was up to the government to construct and develop the public infrastructure in the city to meet the demands of the people. It is not for the court to stop the government from planning, expanding and developing infrastructure and it is an established fact that the courts do not interfere in policy matters, he said. However, he said that the development must always be sustainable and whenever the government undertakes an urban planning project it must ensure that the project does not harm any protected site.
Zafar relied on the judgments from USA, UK and India to show how the courts there had passed orders for protection of their heritage sites like Jantar Mantar, Taj Mahal, Humayun’s Tomb, Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan New York City and other places. Yesterday court issued its verdict saying no construction is allowed in the range of 200 feet of the historical buildings and ordered to issue new NOC and stated to form a committee in this regard comprising DG archaeology and experts of international fame.
Court stated that it will be better to form the committee with the consultation of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) besides the court also instructed to intact environment department report of May 7 2016.
Court however, dismissed the petition challenging project on the grounds of environment.
