PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Thursday sought a rejoinder from a petitioner to the reply of federal government in his plea for details of mining and mineral exploration leases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including Muhammad khel Copper Mining Project in North Waziristan tribal district.

A bench consisting of Justice Syed Mohammad Attique Shah and Justice Sahibzada Asadullah issued the directives to petitioner Advocate Malik Mohammad Ajmal, who had requested for a comprehensive report about the annual mining revenue, contract awards, beneficiaries of mineral exploration and mining contracts in the province.

The petitioner also sought information about the share of federal and provincial governments in the revenue generated by these mining leases. When the bench took up for hearing the case, the petitioner stated that federal government had submitted its reply to the petition. He said that he needed time to go through the reply after which he would file a rejoinder to it.

He said that being a resident of the province, he was eager to know about the local natural resources, including oil and gas, chromite, copper and granite.

Petitioner claims mining leases in KP mostly kept secret

Mr Ajmal contended that the province was rich in natural resources, which were mostly unexplored. He said that even the income generated by the explored natural resources had not been known to people, especially the residents of those areas.

During course of hearing, the bench asked why the petitioner wanted to indulge the court in such like matters as it was the job of relevant MPAs and senators to make public such information.

The petitioner insisted that in order to deprive the people of the respective areas, the agreements of mining and mineral exploration were concealed from them. “To get all this information, I was left with no option but to approach the high court,” he said.

Mr Ajmal said that the contract for Muhammad khel Copper Mining Project was awarded to Frontier Works Organisation.

He pointed out that in a TV programme about the project, a representative of FWO declared that it was the second largest cooper site in the country with 3.5 million tonnes of deposits and that 400 people were working on the scheme with 70 per cent being locals.

“That FWO official also disclosed that 22,000 tonnes of copper extracted from the Muhammad khel site during the last three years had been sold to China for $35 million since the start of production in Nov 2019,” he said.

The petitioner said that under Article 158 of the Constitution, the province where a natural gas well-head was located should have priority access to the gas from that well-head, meeting its own needs before its supply to other parts of the country.

He said that the province had several oil and gas fields and it was the rights of locals to get necessary information about them, including income from them.

The petitioner contended that the right to information was his fundamental right under Article 19-A of the Constitution and it was the duty of the high court to enforce that right and sought the relevant information from authorities.

The respondents in the petition are the federal secretaries of defence, interior, finance and petroleum ministries, KP government through its chief secretary, provincial secretaries of home and finance departments, and FWO through its project director for Muhammad khel Copper Mining Project.

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2025