ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan has returned a constitution petition against allocation of disproportionate funds to constituencies of Punjab Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi and his family members in violation of procurement laws.
The SC Registrar office returned the petition by raising several objections over it.
In the petitioner, Advocate Mian Dawood requested the apex court to issue an order restraining Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi from allocating public development funds for the constituencies belonging to his family members.
The petitioner also requested the apex court to prevent different government agencies from releasing payments to contractors or placing the public revenue at the indirect disposal of Punjab Assembly members from the constituencies belonging to the family members of the chief minister.
Dawood said that it was an admitted fact that the Punjab chief minister granted his home district the status of division and then allocated over Rs100 billion for development schemes, apparently for two districts Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin. He alleged that the chief minister had released funds to the constituencies of Ch Hussain (NA-68, Gujrat-I), Moonis Elahi (NA-69, Gujrat-II), Sajid Ahmed Bhatti (PP-67, Mandi Bahauddin-III) and his own constituency of PP-430, Gujrat-III.
The petition requested the court to declare as unconstitutional the allocation of disproportionate funds to the constituencies of the chief minister and his family members, besides ruling that the allocation or re-appropriation through supplementary or excess grants of funds in the constituencies and the projects have been initiated in violation of the principle of transparency, good governance and procurement laws.
The petitioner also requested the apex court to direct the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) or any other agency to launch an investigation against those responsible for violation of constitutional provisions and principles of transparency and procurement laws and causing loss or damage to the public exchequer.
“It turns out that 70 per cent of the funds are for the constituencies belonging to the family of the incumbent chief minister,” the petition said, adding that the allocation of funds by masquerading the same as supplement grants is in addition to the non-developmental expenditures to be incurred on building paraphernalia for all divisional offices in Gujrat.
The petition said that it had been reported that Punjab’s total development budget for the fiscal year 2022-23 stood at around Rs700 billion of which a significant portion went to Gujrat division comprising four small districts – Gujrat, Mandi Bahauddin, Wazirabad and Hafizabad – and the lion’s share was kept within the two families. The major beneficiaries from Gujrat are the constituencies of Ch Pervaiz Elahi, his son Moonis and Hussain, the son of Ch Wajahat Hussain.
The petitioner cited the Punjab chief secretary, secretaries of finance and planning and development departments, the Planning and Development Board chairman, Accountant General Office and NAB as respondents.
The petition recalled that the apex court had in 2014 held that the prime minister had no discretionary power vis-à-vis supplementary or excess grant and the same was analogically applicable to the chief ministers as well. It was also held in a 2014 judgment that incurring of expenditure by the federal government without following and recourse to procedure provided in Articles 82 and 83 would amount to nullifying these provisions, it added.
