By Gul Nayab
ISLAMABAD: The Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) Chief Court on Saturday said that Chief Minster had no vested powers regarding distribution of Annual Development Programme (ADP) funds to the Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs).
While hearing a plea filed by opposition members of the GB Legislative Assembly regarding unequal distribution of Annual Development Programme (ADP) funds, a two-member bench said that there was no provision in the Constitution of Islamic The Republic of Pakistan, 1973 as well as in the GB Order, 2018 and rules related to it regarding the discretion of CM in the matter of distribution of development budget among the MLAs.
“The development schemes are required to be project-specific and not individual specific to get the support of the public belonging to a particular area or constituency who are in good books of the CM or the Govt by depriving an area where basic facilities are even not available,” states the verdict issued by the bench comprising of Chief Justice Malik Haq Nawaz and Justice Ali Baig.
However, the bench disposed of the case and directed the opposition members to approach the Supreme Appellate Court (SPC) as similar case was pending before the apex court of the region since 2019. A Division Bench of the Court had decided a similar case wherein an equal distribution of development budget among the elected members of the assembly was directed in a judgment dated 19-2-2019 in Writ Petition titled ‘Capt. Rtd. Muhammad Shafi, Member GBLA vs. Chief Minister & others’.
According to the detailed verdict, as per contentions of petitioners, the development budget of the GB Government was not distributed equitably, and the share of opposition benches was diverted to the constituencies of treasury benches, which was required to be distributed on the basis of population of the districts as well as the constituencies. But this principle of population-based distribution was violated by the government.
The opposition in their plea sought to declare the ADP framed by the government null and void due to its discriminatory nature and prayed the court to direct the govt to distribute the ADP equitably for schemes without discrimination. It was also urged to restrain the govt from implementing ADP 2022-2022 in its present form.
In response to the plea of the opposition, the Assistant Advocate General appearing on behalf of govt opposed the petition and argued that the ground of discrimination with the petitioners was baseless. He submitted that the Chief Minister being the Chief Executive of the govt had the vested powers to increase the budget where he feels necessary.
He argued that a similar nature case has already been decided by this Court, which has been suspended by the Supreme Appellate Court on appeal, which is still pending before the Apex Court and asked opposition to approach the Apex Court for the early hearing of the said appeal.
Opposition members celebrated the verdict as their victory on social media and termed the decisions of the incumbent government as fake. When contacted, Opposition member from Ghizer Nawaz Khan Naji expressed satisfaction over the decision and said that they will fight the case in Supreme Appellate Court as well.
Spokesperson to GB CM Ali Taj asked the Opposition leader to refrain from misleading people. He said that the Honorable Chief Court has dismissed all the petitions by directing all the petitioners to approach the Apex Court.
