Objections from the Public Need to be Invited By Publication in the Newspapers for Naming, Renaming or Changing the Name of A Village, Park, Road or any Public Place: Justice Musarrat Hilali
The Supreme Court recently has decided a case wherein a dispute with regard to changing name of a village was involved. The dispute stems from a notification issued by the then N.W.F.P Government ( now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) whereby the the Government changed the name of village Tambah Maha to Maira Swati Abad in 2010. Some of the inhabitants were not happy with name changing and challenged it in the Peshawar High Court, stating that the population of the village is more than thirty thousand comprising different classes, communities, and ethnicities. Therefore, it is not appropriate and just to change the name of the village and name it after a specific class or community. The PHC accepted the petition and declared the notification null and void. The same was challenged before the SC.
The SC held that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Councils Naming and Renaming of Public Places Rules, 1994 (the Rules) stipulates a specific procedure for naming or renaming a public place, like a park, a school or a road etc. The relevant portion of the rules is as follows:
“2. A Council may, with the prior approval of Government, assign a name to a road, street, square, park or any other public place or change the name of any such road, street, square, park or any other public place. Provided that no such name shall be assigned or changed, unless the proposal of naming or re-naming, as the case may ben, has been published in press for inviting objections and suggestions of public in such manner as a Local Council may determine” .
The Court asserted that though these rules do not provide a mechanism for changing a name of a public place, but the said procedure which is provided for naming or renaming a public place may also be adopted for changing name of a public place. Before changing the name of a public place, a news in this regard shall be circulated among the inhabitants of that locality by publication in the newspaper; objections through the said publication from the general public of that locality shall be invited and an opportunity of hearing shall be afforded to the objectors. Only then, a government can decide to change or not to change a name of a village or any public place.
The SC upheld the decision of the PHC and dismissed the appeal.
c.a._1444_2013
