LAHORE: The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif to submit Rs 5.5 million to the national exchequer after a newspaper advertisement on behalf of the Punjab government carrying his picture was shown in the court.
A three-member bench of the SC, headed by the Chief Justice (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar was hearing the suo motu notice over expenditure on government advertisements in the Lahore registry.
During the hearing, the Punjab information secretary told the court that in a month’s time, over Rs120 million worth of advertisements were put up to which the CJP responded saying “If in a month’s time this amount of money was spent then in a year’s time the amount would sum up to Rs10.5 billion.”
The provincial chief secretary told the court that the purpose of the advertisement in question was to show the development work completed by the government in the past five years.
The CJP then inquired about a particular ad put up by the Punjab chief minister and secretary information said that the ad cost Rs5.5 million from the treasury.
CJP remarked that the same amount of money would have brought a huge chunk of medicines. He then directed the chief minister to submit Rs5.5 million to the national exchequer and sent notices to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Punjab CM and the All Pakistan Newspapers Society.
