Who owns Botanical Garden’s land
The civic and administrative authorities of the federal capital found themselves in a tight spot on Wednesday when they were asked how they could allocate land of a province while taking possession of more land than what was allocated.
This was disclosed on Wednesday as a two-member bench of the Supreme Court (SC), comprising Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Muneeb Akhtar, as it heard a case on the Botanical Gardens in Bani Gala.
The bench summoned a report from the Survey of Pakistan (SoP) regarding the delimitation of the garden.
Reviewing the Capital Development Authority’s (CDA) report on the matter, Justice Akhtar said that land on which the botanical garden is to be built was leased to the authority by the Punjab government in 1966. The lease for this land expired in 2012 and the land should have been returned to the provincial government.
At this, the Punjab Additional Advocate General (AAG) Qasim Chuhan said that though the lease expired eight years ago, the CDA has yet to pay the provincial government.
He added that the Punjab forest department had also sent a summary to the provincial chief minister about the return of the land.
Chauhan further said that the Punjab government was never communicated in writing about the transfer of land to the federal government.
During the hearing, lawyers representing private landowners of Bani Gala told the court that an SC bench had ordered in 2018 to recover forest land in the area.
The asserted that instead of retrieving the 583 acres on which the botanical gardens have been envisioned, the government allegedly seized 725 acres of land, around 142 acres extra.
At this, Justice Banidal remarked that the government is liable to recover encroached land whenever it wants. However, the tehsil official has to explain on what basis was the possession of additional land taken.
Tehsil official contended that they did so in light of the apex court’s orders.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 29th, 2020.