Supreme Court: The court intervenes if government plans fail the transparency test

Islamabad: The Supreme Court has made it clear that it interferes with government schemes only if it does not meet the legal test of transparency, conflicts of interests or unsuccessful scrutiny by auditors. Supervision of the plan is not a matter of court.

The remarks were given by the Chief Secretary to the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Peshawar Development Authority (PDA), Local Government and Rural Development Secretaries and Transport Department.

The petition called for the Peshawar High Court to dismiss the November 14, 2019 decision in which the High Court asked the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to investigate the controversial Peshawar Bus Repeat Transit Project (BRT) case. Was submitted and 35 questions were generated in this regard.

The Bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Omar Ata Bandial, directed the petitioner Adnan Afridi, who filed the petition in the Peshawar High Court, to submit a complete response to the provincial government's response against the High Court verdict through a lawyer.

The court subsequently adjourned the case for a month until the Peshawar High Court will order the FIA ​​to order a stay on the BTR investigation.

However, the planners assured the Supreme Court that the BRT would be completed by the end of July this year and the speculation that the cost of the project has increased from Rs 49 billion to Rs 1 trillion is just rumor and project will be completed at a cost of Rs. 69 billion

He said the initial cost of the project was increased by Rs 17 billion because it included 2 km extra and 85 percent of the project was funded by the Asian Development Bank while the rest was the responsibility of the provincial government.

In this regard, Makhdoom Ali Khan, a senior lawyer representing the PDA, said the courts would be filled with people if every person started the world to pay compensation to the government because of its privacy.

It should be remembered that the Peshawar High Court while deciding the case, said that the town plan was conceived as Greek because most of the traffic in Peshawar is on Khyber Road.