Lahore High Court’s Justice Chaudhry Muhammad Iqbal imposed fine of Rs500,000 on Indian citizen petitioners over obtaining 23 kanal and nine marla land fraudulently by hiding facts.
The court directed the chief settlement commissioner to cancel all allotments in the names of the petitioners and their predecessor and retrieve its possession in favour of the state.
The petitioners had obtained the allotment as legal heirs on June 6, 2009 allegedly by misrepresentation of facts. When the matter came to the knowledge of the chief settlement commissioner, he cancelled the allotment, but the decision was challenged in court.
Justice Iqbal ordered that the chief settlement commissioner of Punjab should complete the process of implementation of the judgment within two months.
Petitioners Abdul Rehman and others had got inserted through mutation their names as owners of the evacuee property as heirs of Muhammad Umar of Mouza Aomra, Tehsil Ferozpur in India who had been sanctioned the land in Malku area of Lahore on January 15, 1954, although a revenue officer had cancelled the allotment on July 20, 1964.
On an application of one Sajjad Ahmad, the chief settlement commissioner initiated proceedings to ascertain the veracity of the allotment. However, the applicant later requested withdrawal of his application.
The chief settlement commissioner continued the probe and resultantly cancelled the allotment to Umar on June 6, 2009. The petitioner’s counsel told the court that Umar was a displaced person who was allotted land measuring 23 kanal and nine marla in Malku village on July 12, 1955 and had the possession. After he died on June 28, 2002, one Mumriaz Khan got entered in the revenue record an inheritance mutation, which was cancelled on December 19, 2004. The counsel said the petitioners were legal heirs of Umar and had received a decree on January 19, 2009 from a civil court in Lahore.
The counsel contended that the order issued on June 6, 2009 by the Board of Revenue member was illegal. The counsel for the respondents supported the order. Justice Iqbal observed that documents produced before the civil court showed that the predecessor of the petitioners was a permanent resident of India who never migrated to Pakistan. The petitioners were also permanent residents of India who were pursuing the petition through a special attorney.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 30th, 2021.
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