LAHORE: The Lahore High Court, issuing stay orders to halt signal free corridor project until March 20, has directed the Lahore Development Authority to remove all equipment, machinery from the site immediately.
The judge also directed the Environment Protection Department (EPD) to ensure halt of the project and ordered the Lahore CCPO to render full assistance to the EPD for implementation of this order.
Fahad Malik, a lawyer-petitioner, had challenged the said project of respondent LDA. At the outset of hearing, the petitioner-lawyer said EIA of the project had yet not been approved.
The court observed that EPD Secretary failed to take any action against respondent LDA or the Project Director for violating Section 12 of the Act.
The judge sought written reply from the EPD Secretary for not issuing notice to LDA. Moreover, the court asked LDA DG to hold a detailed inquiry as to why the project commenced and equipment was deployed on the site and construction work started without an Environmental Impact Assessment (“EIA”) approval. The project director was also asked to submit reply.
LDA counsel conceded that no EIA approval had been obtained by the LDA regarding the above project and the position taken by the representatives of the Environment Protection Department had been admitted by him.
Mahmood Ghani, P& D Law officer, said this was not a project of the provincial government and the provincial government did not allocate funds for it. The counsel for LDA stated that the project solely funded by the LDA from its own resources.
