Justice delayed, not denied: Land dispute decided after 45 years

Land dispute was first brought before a sessions' court in 1965.

NAUSHERA VIRKAN: A land-dispute, first brought before a sessions’ court in Naushera Virkan in 1965, was decided by the Lahore High Court on Wednesday.

On directives of Justice Farrukh Khan, SSP (Investigation) Shaukat Abbass on Thursday handed over the possession of 19 acres of farmland in Marri Khurd village to Master Inayat, the son of Imam Din, who first filed the case. Din had died in 2008 at the age of 98 while the case was still pending in the Lahore High Court.

The original petition involved 65 acres of land and was moved by Fakhar and Taj Ahmed against Imam Din and Bashir Ahmed under their right to preempt a sale. The latter had bought the 65-acre land next to Fakhar and Taj Ahmed’s land from Saeed Khan.

The case went on for 38 years. In 2003, the Supreme Court disposed of the petition distributing the land into three portions (giving a third each to Imam Din and Bashir Ahmed and dividing the remaining third between Fakhar and Taj Din). While Bashir Ahmed, Fakhar and Taj Ahmed got their share, Imam Din had to contest another case to get the land recovered from his tenant, Abdul Hameed.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Master Inayat, Imam Din’s son who was now following the case, said that Hameed had illegally gotten possession of the land in 2003 after the Supreme Court divided it among the three parties.

He said Hameed made his father submit a document with his thumb impression in the court stating that he himself was in possession of the land when actually it was Hameed who possessed it.

He said his father moved High Court after he was told by the police and the Revenue Department that they could not offer any help in the matter. “My father was illiterate. Hameed deceived him,” he said.

Inayat said that his son and grandson (Haji Ahmed and Amir Hamza) had also been pursuing the case along with him since 2003. “The hearings in the case had become a routine for us,” he said, “I grew up seeing my father leaving every now and then for the city to attend the hearings and had been doing the same since six years.”

He said he was grateful that the case got decided in his lifetime and that his children would not have to suffer because of it.

Hameed went missing after he was dispossessed of the land. The SSP (Investigation) said he must have fled to some other village fearing mistreatment in the village now that he had no land there.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 28^th, 2011.