LHC refers inclusion of rural areas in Gujrat MC to LG secretary.

GUJRAT -- The Lahore High Court has ordered the secretary of local government department to decide the matter of including rural areas into the limits of Gujrat Municipal Corporation after hearing both the parties while allowing a writ petition.

The court has also fixed Jan 29 as the date of hearing the matter in response to a writ petition filed by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf MPA from Gujrat city Saleem Sarwar Jaura, also a parliamentary secretary for social welfare department, who had challenged the notification issued by Gujrat deputy commissioner and Gujranwala commissioner, the appellant authority against the demarcation of the local bodies.

Justice Shamas Mehmood Mirza of the LHC in an order referred the matter to the local government secretary asking him to hear both the parties -- the petitioner MPA and Gunjranwal commissioner and Gujrat DC.

Advocate Hammad Najeeb, who represented the petitioner, said the court had allowed the petition and directed the parties to appear before the local government secretary to further decide the matter.

However, he claimed that the court had declared the inclusion of rural areas into the limits of Gujrat MC as illegal and set aside the notification issued by the commisioner in this regard.

He said the petitioner had objected to the inclusion of 29 villages into the MC limits.

In an official statement issued here on Tuesday, the Gujrat local government deputy director said the court had referred the matter to the secretary to hear both the parties on Jan 29.

The department had earlier proposed the inclusion of at least 45 villages into the Gujrat MC limits during October 2019 demarcation which was later challenged before the commissioner.

However, the commissioner had excluded five villages from the said list but at the same time included five other villages into the MC limits, while accepting different petitions by the locals.

The local government department had included at least 128 villages into the limits of four municipalities of Gujrat Tehsil -- MCs of Gujrat city, Jalalpur Jattan, Kunjah and newly notified Mungowal during the demarcation which was a surprising move for the locals.

As many as 40...