LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreelei-Insaf Lahore district (Urban) president Walid Iqbal on Monday filed an application with the Supreme Court seeking inclusion as party in the appeals against the Lahore High Court verdict on the Orange Line project.

In his petition, Mr Iqbal states: `The strong and the weak must be treated by law on an equal footing, and that the appeals take up excesses of State functionaries againsttheinterests of the people of Lahore, their culture, their history, and their heritage, that State institutions must be totally de-politicised, and the appeals take up circumstances where State functionaries have acted against the policy of the law merely to promote the whims of their political masters andto please them accordingly, that the inviolability of dignity of man must be upheld, and the appeals take up irretrievable and irreparable damage to the soul of a nation, namely, the risk to our heritage, and to our national pride by extension`.

He states that the Supreme Court is taking up not just a matter of national importance but also an issue of international significance in view of various globallevel treaties whereby damaging or destroying historic monuments has even been declared a war crime.

On Oct 13, a five-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali will take up multiple appeals filed by various governmental authorities, challenging the verdict passed by a special division bench of the LHC against the train project on Aug 19.