ISLAMABAD      -    The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Tuesday reserved its verdict over maintainability of a petition seek­ing removal of the Chief Justice of Pakistan’s name from the dam fund account’s title.

A single bench of IHC compris­ing Chief Justice of IHC Justice Aam­er Farooq conducted hearing of the petition moved by a lawyer Adnan Iqbal and pleaded for suspending the Registrar Supreme Court’s au­thority over the dam fund. The peti­tioner has also requested the court to summon the former chief justice of Pakistan and questioning him about the fund he had launched for building dams and water reservoirs.

During the hearing, the IHC Chief Justice asked from the petitioner that have you read the notification in this matter and what is wrong in it.

The petitioner replied that how the Supreme Court is managing this matter as construction of dams is the duty of the executive. He added that it is violation of Article 175 and the apex court should handle the cases pending before it.

Justice Aamer said that what is the issue if the SC is looking this mat­ter because this matter is being han­dled administratively and the SC is also an executive body. He asked that why did he not file the petition when the money was being collected and why you did not object when the dam fund was being collected.

He further said that five years have passed after the collection of dam funds and if there was any objection then, the State Bank of Pakistan should have raised over it. The petitioner ad­opted the stance that it is not in the ambit of the apex court to collect such funds. Later, the IHC bench reserved its verdict over maintainability of this petition. In the petition, the petition­er cited Governor State Bank of Pa­kistan (SBP, Finance Division, Prime Minister of Pakistan, Registrar, Su­preme Court of Pakistan, Chair­man Public Accounts Committee and former chief justice Saqib Nisar as respondents. He stated he was just surfing the website of the Supreme Court of Pakistan where he came across the portal for “Dam Fund” and upon further research, it came to the knowledge that the Finance Division pursuant to the direction of the ex-Chief Justice of the Su­preme Court of Pakistan vide a no­tification on 10 July, 2018 has es­tablished a bank account (Supreme Court of Pakistan Diamer Basha and Mohmand Dam Fund) which is being supervised by the Su­preme Court of Pakistan through its Registrar. He added that the bank account has been established for raising funds for the construc­tion of two mega dams in Diamer Basha and Mohmand. The bank ac­count was later on titled as the Chief Justice of Pakistan and Prime Min­ister of Pakistan Diamer Basha and Mohmand Dam. The petition stated that moreover, the Supreme Court through its Registrar not only con­trols, supervises and manages the funds but also encourages the gen­eral public, institution and organi­zations to donate to the cause while Saqib Nisar once claimed that we may get more funds than required through this scheme for the con­struction of the two dams, and it has also been stated very unequivocally in the impugned notification that the funds shall be utilized for construc­tion of the dams.