Law:

Section:

Constitution of Pakistan------Arts. 199 & 18---Constitutional petition---Allotment of site without open auction---Cancellation of said allotment and re-allotment of same through open auction---Scope---Locus poenitentiae, principle of---Applicability---Contention of petitioners was that sites were allotted to them for a period of five years and advertisement for auction of same was illegal, arbitrary and in contravention of their fundamental rights---Validity---License in question had conferred right in favour of petitioners but such right originally belonged to the State and State exercised its authority through public functionaries---Public functionaries were under obligation to protect and preserve transparency and to ensure maximum gain for public exchequer whenever a right belonging to the State was going to be alienated---Equal opportunity should be extended to all potential aspirants who intended to acquire the State property---Public functionaries were bound to invoke such provisions of law which would ensure maximum participation with an object to gain maximum advantage---Fundamental exercise of public notice was not followed by the Authority which had rendered the whole exercise superfluous---Licenses were granted to the petitioners without any competitive process---Petitioners could not claim to have a vested right to continue for the license period---Article 18 of the Constitution had been violated as no other competitor except petitioners was invited for bidding---Action had been taken across the board against all the licenses which were issued without any competitive process and there was no question of discrimination---Competent authority was vested with powers to repeal an illegal order---Principle of locus poenitentiae was not applicable in the present case---Relief under constitutional jurisdiction could not be extended in aid of injustice---Constitutional petition was dismissed in circumstances. Raunaq Ali v. Chief Settlement Commissioner PLD 1973 SC 236 and 1998 SCMR 516 rel. Dr. Amjad Hussain Bukhari for Petitioners. Raja Adnan Aslam for Respondents/CDA. ORDER MUHAMMAD ANWAR KHAN KASI, C.J.--- The petitioners' case is that the…

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