Nadra fee: notices to BISEs, Centre

LAHORE, The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday again issued notices to the federal government, the Punjab local government, National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) and all boards of intermediate and secondary education (BISEs) on a writ petition challenging powers of Nadra to charge fee for providing services to citizens. Earlier, a law officer informed the court that the respondents had not filed their replies so far and the court issued fresh notices for May 20.

The petition was filed by Judicial Activism Panel chairman Muhammad Azhar Siddiqui advocate, seeking a restraining order against Nadra from charging fees on all services being provided to citizens.

The petitioner said the authority was charging fee throughout Pakistan for issuance of origin cards, computerised national identity cards, registration of births, deaths, marriages and registration of minors in B-Forms.

He pointed out that no notifications regarding charging fee for issuance of these cards had been either prescribed or made public.

He said the levy of fee on services could be sustainable only when equal services were rendered to the persons paying the registration fee.

Lawyer fined: Justice Nasir Saeed Sheikh of the Lahore High Court on Thursday imposed a fine of Rs5,000 on the counsel of a petitioner for wasting the court’s time in a case against PML-N lawmaker Mudassar Qayyum Nahra.

As the proceedings started on Thursday, the judge asked lawyer Kamran Sheikh to get adjournment for some other day because of shortage of time, but the lawyer insisted on continuing the arguments.

After hearing his arguments for half an hour, the judge asked him to provide copies of the case law in support of his arguments, but the lawyer said he did not bring the copies and books of the case law with him.

This attitude of the lawyer irked the judge, who imposed fine on him for wasting the court’s time and directed him to come up with complete arguments on May 17.

The lawyer was representing Chaudhry Bilal Ijaz of the PML-Q, who challenged BA degree of Nahra, a PML-N lawmaker from NA-100 constituency, Gujranwala.

The petitioner, who lost the election to Nahra, took the plea that the respondent contested the general election of 2008 on the basis of a fake degree. Nahra won the election as an independent candidate, but later joined the PML-N.

He prayed to the court to disqualify Nahra under articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution because he was a dishonest person.