Sales mutation: Revenue officials punished for contempt of court

Petitioner accuses tehsildar of demanding bribe to issue mutation.

LAHORE:

The Lahore High Court on Monday ordered three Revenue Department officials including a naib tehsildar and a patwari arrested and held ‘till the rising of the court’ for not issuing a sales mutation to a complainant in the absence of the tehsildar.

Justice Kazim Raza Shamsi ordered Ghulam Haider, Zulfiqar Ali and Mukhtar Ahmad to remain standing in the court for over two hours after the court was informed that sales mutation was not issued because Tehsildar Rai Niaz Ali had started an aitekaf and was unavaliable.

At a previous hearing, the judge had directed the tehsildar to sanction a sales mutation to the petitioner when the revenue officer stated that the registration deed the petitioner had not been verified. The petitioner had alleged that the tehsildar was demanding illegal gratification to issue the mutation certificate. The petition was filed by Ameeruddin Qureshi, who submitted that he had purchased 20 kanals land in Chuhng in 1982. He said soon afterwards he shifted to London. He said he had filed several applications with the tehsildar seeking issuance of mutation certificate for the sale on the basis of the registered sale deed but to no avail. He said that the tehsildar informed him that there was litigation going on with regard to his land.

The petitioner said when he examined the case record from the court concerned, he found out that the litigation was between two land grabbers each out to grab his land. However, he said, his registered sale deed was not questioned in the said litigation. The petitioner said that he had also registered an FIR against those who were intending to grab his land.

He said that under Section 42 of the Land Revenue Act, 1967, the respondents were bound to issue the mutation certificate on the basis of the registered sale deed. He had sought a court direction to the respondents to issue the mutation certificate for his land.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 23^rd, 2011.