LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday summoned the Secretary Local Government on a petition seeking inclusion of suspension period of local bodies due to the enactment of the Punjab Local Government Act, 2019 in tenure to complete five years.

At the outset of the hearing, the court expressed frustration over the non-submission of reply by the law officer of the Punjab government and remarked that the lawyers should adopt principles of Quaid-e-Azam.

The court also gave a deadline of tomorrow to file a reply to the petition.

The Lahore mayor Col(Retd) Mubashar Javed through his lawyer argued that he was elected as city mayor by the local governments formed under the Punjab Local Government Act, 2013.

The counsel said the petitioner was aggrieved of the illegal dissolution of the local government without following the procedure of the succeeding legislation in 2019 by which he was deprived of representing the electorate for 22 months as well as subsequent seven months.

He said the petitioner had been denied the legitimate expectation to serve the public interest of his constituents, which was not only against the doctrine of democracy but also infringement of his fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 17 of the Constitution.

Justice Jawad Hassan had observed that the petitioners prayed that the term of office of a local government formed under Article 140-A of the Constitution read with provisions of section 30 of the Act of 2013 should be provided to them and the period excluded due to the enactment of the new law in 2019 be added in tenure to complete their five years.

The court had already issued a notice to the Advocate general Punjab to respond to legal questions raised in the petition. The court will resume hearing on Thursday.