Former MPA alleges court contempt, victimisation

The owner of an under-construction restaurant alleged that action was taken in violation of a court restraining order.

LAHORE: The owner of an under-construction restaurant, part of which was demolished by the Lahore Development Authority’s (LDA) directorate of enforcement on July 19 has alleged that the action was taken in violation of a civil court restraining order. She told The Express Tribune that a contempt of court against the LDA would be filed during the hearing on July 23.

She said that the original restraining order barred the LDA from taking coercive action until October 16, 2010.

Perveen Sikander Gill, the co-owner of the restaurant and a former MPA, said that she is nominating the LDA director general, director (Town Planning), director (Enforcement) and deputy director (Town Planning) in her plea.

Khalid Abdul Rehman, the CEO of the Landmark Construction Consultant (Pvt), who led the protests against the LDA’s demolition operation launched in December 2009, is the other owner of the property.

The LDA directorate of enforcement, headed by Umme Laila, equipped with trucks, cranes and a bulldozer, demolished the boundary wall of the restaurant at noon on July 19.

The LDA officials allegedly beat up the restaurant employees who resisted the operation.

Ms Gill said that the LDA team fled from the scene when she showed them the stay order issued by the court.

The former MPA then called the police which impounded the LDA machinery and vehicles.

Gill said that she filed an application with the police for an FIR against the LDA officials but it was not registered.

She said that the police officials told her that they were helpless. “They said that they had strict instructions from the high-ups which barred them from registering the FIR,” she said.She claimed that the demolition was carried out on the PML-N led provincial government’s instructions. She alleged that the government was using the LDA to settle personal scores with the PML-Q leaders.

Sohail Janjua, the LDA spokesperson, denied that the demolition was politically motivated. He held that to his knowledge the stay order issued by the civil court had already expired.

“We issued prior warning to the owners,” he said. He added that beside non-payment of the commercialisation fee, the building plan was not approved by the town planning branch.

Khalid Abdul Rehman said that if the LDA team had valid orders to undertake the demolition of the restaurant it should have stayed at the site and completed the operation. “They fled away when we showed them the restraining order,” he said.

He said that in accordance with the court directive they sent a reminder to the LDA’s commercialisation branch on July 17 to process their request for commercialisation of the said plot. “We told them that the request was pending since 2009 and that we had earlier sent reminders on Feb 3 and May 21 but no demand notice or challan form was issued,” he said.  He mentioned that in response to the reminder LDA sent them a letter on July 21 explaining that the authority no longer entertained requests for temporary commercialisation. The letter sited Section 71 of the Land Rules of 2009 (Classification, Reclassification and Redevelopment) and said that under the new policy temporary/annual commercialisation was not allowed, therefore, the request could not be entertained.

Rehman criticised the LDA for issuing the letter “two days after carrying out the demolition operation. What was the point of the letter?” he questioned. “It was probably a damage control attempt after the LDA realised that it had committed a blunder,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 23^rd, 2010.