islamabad - Islamabad High Court on Thursday served notices on the respondents in the intra-court appeal of Mayor Islamabad Sheikh Ansar Aziz against his removal from the post of chairman Capital Development Authority following verdict of a single bench of the IHC on December 29, 2017.
A two-judge bench of the high court comprising Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani issued notices to the respondents but rejected Sheikh’s plea to issue stay order in the matter.
The bench directed the respondents to submit their replies within seven days.
The Mayor of Islamabad had moved the court through his counsel Aslam advocate and had cited Farrukh Nawaz Bhatti and other petitioners, on whose petitions he was removed from the office of chairman CDA, as respondents.
On December 29, the IHC single bench comprising Justice Athar Minallah nullified two notifications dated September 6, 2016 through which Sheikh was first appointed as ex-officio member of the CDA board and then as part time chairman of the authority.
The IHC single bench said in its verdict that the notifications were issued in violation of provisions of the CDA Ordinance and were, therefore, declared as illegal, without lawful authority and jurisdiction.
The court had also directed the federal government to forthwith initiate process for selection of an eligible person to be appointed as member of the CDA board for fixed term as specified under section 6(3) of the CDA Ordinance and also complete the selection process and appoint a chairman for a fixed period of five years from amongst the members.
The federal government shall complete the process within 45 days from the date of announcement of this judgment, the bench had directed.
In his intra-court appeal, Sheikh Ansar adopted that the impugned judgment was not sustainable as per the law and facts of the case and was liable to be set aside. He added that the judgment failed to accord due and proper interpretation to the statutory language enumerated in the relevant sections.
His counsel contended before the court that the notifications regarding his appointment were declared null and void on the basis mentioned in the judgment that “the notification can by no stretch of imagination be declared as a permanent appointment”. He continued that there was no mention of the word ‘permanent’ in the section 6 of the CDA Ordinance.
In the verdict, it was said that the appointment was also unlawful according to principles of conflict of interest as a company owned by Sheikh had been participating in the auctions of plots by the CDA.
In this connection, Sheikh said that the reasoning advanced in the judgment was not in accordance to the facts as sufficient documents had been placed on the record by the appellant to establish that he had resigned from the office of the company in February 2016 and was appointed CDA chairman in September 2016. He said that one could not disclose what did not exist.
He further said that the single bench judgment breached the coveted borders of three institutions; executive, legislature and judiciary, and entered unknowingly into realm of the legislature and gave the statute a language that did not exist. Therefore, he prayed to the court to set aside the December 29 judgment of the IHC single bench.