Ownership dilemma: K-P, APWA property dispute reaches SC

Province claims land grabbers have occupied disputed property

ISLAMABAD: The property dispute between Peshawar’s All Pakistan Women Association (APWA) and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government has reached the Supreme Court.

The provincial government claims the ownership of the disputed property in Peshawar being evacuee property. The property was transferred to APWA for utilisation as charitable and social purposes, including welfare of destitute people.

The K-P government claims the organisation does not exist anymore and some land grabbers have occupied the disputed property under the garb of APWA.

The encroachers, the government alleges, have started commercial activities by constructing a commercial plaza on the plot.

When the government directed the local government to stop the illegal construction, APWA approached the Peshawar High Court, which declared the provincial government’s orders as illegal and without jurisdiction.

However, the PHC also stopped APWA from raising construction on the disputed property. Both the parties have now filed appeals against the PHC’s January 29, 2015 judgment in the apex court.

In its appeal, APWA stated even a single document has not been brought forward to remotely suggest any right, title or interest of provincial government authorities on the property in question.

“The [PHC] judgment is not at all applicable to the facts and circumstances of the instant case nor was the petitioner [APWA] even called upon to establish title in earlier round of litigation by the high court or Supreme Court,” the appeal reads.

The top court will take up the case tomorrow (Wednesday).

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31^st, 2016.