Railways told to approach govt for unused land

SC says parliament can develop legal framework for use of land

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court has asked the Pakistan Railways to approach the federal government and parliament to develop a legal regulatory framework for the use of unused land by it.

The top court on Saturday issued a written order for the Jan 26 hearing of the PR Royal Palm Club case.

Currently, the PR is using 126,000 acres of land for serial operations out of 169,000 acres. About 16,000 acres of railways land has been reserved for future expansion projects while 9,000 acres has been occupied by the land mafia.

The court declared in its order that it could not decide whether the business plan of the PR was viable or not. During the hearing, the PR apprised the court that it had leased 10,000 acres of land to generate revenue. The PR had requested the court to review the land lease case order, contending that leasing out unused land would allow them to generate more revenue.

During the hearing, the Ferguson Company’s lawyer apprised the court that a technical report had been prepared and handed over to the railways, while the audit report would be completed by March.

The additional attorney general apprised the court that an amount of Rs95 million had to be recovered from Asif Shaha and Shahrukh Khan of which Rs10 million had been paid. The hearing was adjourned until March.