Jahangir Tareen not ineligible to inaugurate government projects: LHC

BAHAWALPUR: The Lahore High Court’s Bahawalpur bench on Thursday said that the inauguration of various government projects by PTI’s former Secretary-General and disqualified MNA Jahangir Tareen was not ‘illegal’, ARY News reported.

The court was hearing a petition filed at the Bahawalpur bench of the provincial high court, seeking a ban on Tareen’s inauguration of projects of Federal and Punjab governments.

The petitioner maintained that since Tareen stood disqualified from being a member of the parliament, he was, therefore, also ineligible to act on government’s behalf.

It maintained that Tareen’s activities were in violation of article 199 (a) (1) of the Constitution.

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The article 199 (a) (1), which describes the jurisdictions of the High Courts in Pakistan, says that a High Court can make an order “directing a person performing, within the territorial jurisdiction of the Court, functions in connection with the affairs of the Federation, a Province or a local authority, to refrain from doing anything he is not permitted by law to do, or to do anything he is required by law to do”.

The court maintained that nothing that Tareen was doing violated the said article of the constitution, hence the petition was inadmissible.

It further said that Tareen couldn’t be stopped from inaugurating government’s projects as the courts couldn’t interfere in ‘policy matters’ of the government.

Subsequently, the petition was dismissed.