Former Punjab Assembly deputy speaker Rana Mashhood has denied that he violated the Election Commission’s code of conduct by renaming Sodiwal Hospital after his father, as the decision was made by the Punjab government.
Muhammad Farhan, from Mashhood’s PP-149 constituency, had moved a petition before Returning Officer Rai Ayub Khan Marth, who is also an additional district and sessions judge, accusing Mashhood of deception in changing the name and of turning the hospital into a PML-N office. He had said that the official name remained Sodiwal Hosptial.
Mashhood submitted that the chief minister had changed the name of the hospital into Government Rana Abdul Rahim Memorial Hospital for his meritorious services to society.
He said that the hospital had previously been a dispensary illegally occupied by a former local councillor. He said that he had the dispensary vacated and provided more land so it could be converted into a hospital. The chief minister approved the project, at a cost of Rs55 million, he added.
A police official also submitted a report before the returning officer stating that the Punjab government had sanctioned the renaming of the hospital.
Marth asked a monitoring team consisting of civil judges to submit a report on the matter on March 28.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 27th, 2013.