PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Monday gave the secretaries of planning and development and irrigation departments 10 days to respond to the petition of a PPP MPA from Upper Dir district against the alleged discrimination of the provincial government in the allocation of development funds to his area.

Justice Qaisar Rashid Khan and Justice Mohammad Ghazanfar Khan issued the directives after preliminary arguments advanced by counsel appearing for the petitioner Sahibzada Sanaullah, an MPA from PK-93 Upper Dir, who has requested the court to declareillegalthe lesser allocation of funds for his constituency compared to the adjoining constituencies from where the elected MPAs are part of the treasury.

The petitionerhas requested the court to direct the relevant departments to allocate funds to the schemes and projects of the petitioner constituency at par with other constituencies in the province and particularly in Upper Dir and Lower Dir in all the develop-mental projects.

The respondents in the petition are the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through the chief minister; KP chief secretary; secretaries of education, planning and development, irrigation and health departments; provincial development working party (PDWP) through its chairman, and additional chief secretary.

The petitioner`s counsel, Muzzamil Khan, said earlier declared returned candidate from the said constituency was Behram Khan of Jamaat-iIslami, which was in alliance with the PTI in the provincial government.

He said until his period the constituency was treated equally in almost all developmental schemes.

The lawyer said after Behram Khan was disqualified and the petitioner was elected from the said constituency, the provincial government reducedfundstorunningprojectsas well as fresh projects submitted by the petitioner in utter disregard to rules of business and Constitution.

He pointed out that particularly in KP Local government and rural development department umbrella PC-1 of uplift of rural roads in dis-trict Dir Upper and Dir Lower an estimated cost of Rs1.05 billion was allocated.

The lawyer added that in the first instance in the period of former MPA allocations were properly made almost on equal basis, but in the second phase when petitioner was representing the constituency, improper and discriminatory allocation had now been made by the government.

He said in the communication and worl(s department even no allocation of funds had been made to PK-93 out of huge funds and all the running projects had come to standstill due to non-allocation of funds.

The lawyer said the allocations of funds to MPAs and their respective constituencies on different yardsticks was not only discrimination with a particular member but the people at large of a particular constituency had been deprived of their fundamental rights in the departments of education, health, irrigation, rural development, etc.

He said all MPAs had equal rights and were required to be treated in accordance with the law but the instant allocation of funds in almost all ADP schemes were arbitrary.