Notices issued on petition challenging 'govt move to rename' BISP.

LAHORE -- The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday issued notices to the federal authorities on a petition by PPP Central Punjab President Chaudhry Qamar Zaman Kaira challenging the government's move to 'rename' the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP).

A bench headed by LHC Chief Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan took up the petition and directed the official respondents, including the federal law secretary, the finance secretary and the BISP secretary and director general to submit their comments on the petition by the next hearing. However the LHC chief justice said that the decision regarding issuance of stay order will be made after hearing the stance of federal government.

During the hearing the federal government representative informed the court that BISP is running; however under this programme Ehsaas and Kafalat programmes are also running. Upon this chief justice inquired whether other programs could be run under BISP. Upon this secretary BISP informed this could not be done; however for provisions of assistance to people we are running this programme. Secretary BISP could not satisfy the court after that the court accepted the application for hearing and again issued notices to federal government and secretary BISP. Chief justice said that we could not immediately issue stay order as the process of provision of assistance to the deserved people will be stopped.

The court...