LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday declared Punjab Environment Protection Agency (EPA) Director General Javed Iqbal’s appointment as illegal. The court asked Implementation and Monitoring Laboratories (IML) Director Tauqueer Ahmad of the agency to work as acting DG. LHC Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah passed these orders on Zubair Niazi’s petition. Earlier, the petitioner’s counsel – Sheraz Zaka – submitted that the appointment of EPA DG had been made in violation of the service rules. He submitted that it was mandatory that the DG should be a civil servant or belong to the provincial management services – which the incumbent DG did not fulfil. The respondent was previously technical advisor of the housing department and that an inquiry was also pending against Iqbal with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) regarding the purchase of equipment for the Multan EPA laboratory. Zaka requested that the Iqbal should be stopped from exercising his powers. However, an assistant advocate general defended the appointment by stating that Javed Iqbal was a competent officer and had a PhD degree. He pleaded the court to adjourn the matter for three weeks as the agency was being revamped and a summary had already been forwarded to the competent authority for the purpose. However, the court rejected the request and declared the DG’s appointment ‘illegal’ – observing that he did not meet the criteria.