Contempt plea: Who is entitled to harvest from disputed land?

Administration accused of seizing wheat stock from 67-acre disputed plot without court orders.

GUJRANWALA:

A contempt of court petition was filed on Monday against the Gujranwala district administration for seizing wheat stock harvested on a disputed plot in violation of the Lahore High Court orders.

Petitioners Ashfaq Ali Shah, one of the claimants to the 67-acre farm, and Muhammad Ajmal, his lessee, stated that the stock was confiscated without a court orders.

This, they said, amounted to contempt of court as proceedings in the dispute on ownership of the land were underway in the High Court. They said the court had last year declared the land disputed and barred anyone from cultivating the land. They added that the land was cultivated in violation of the court order but the district administration’s action to seize the produce was also illegal. They said the produce was the sole property of the lessee under the rental agreement.

The contempt petition follows the confiscation of the stock in an operation led by Naushera Wirkan revenue department officials on Saturday. The operation was carried out on the request of Rao Zafar Yaseen, another claimant to the land and a party in the High Court case.

DCO Muhammad Amin Chaudhry told The Express Tribune that he had directed the Naushera Virkan assistant commissioner to proceed with the matter in accordance with the High Court orders. He said if the petitioners felt that the administration’s action was in violation of the order they could either file an application to him or take their grievance to the court.

Qanoon Go (Revenue Department official) Saif Ali, who led the operation on Saturday, said he had acted upon the assistant commissioner’s directive. AC Ali Ahmed Bhinder was not available for comment.

Advocate Mian Shahid Ansari told The Tribune that while Ajmal (the lessee) could be punished for cultivating the land in violation of the court order, the wheat stock could not be taken away from him. “The law says the produce is the property of the tenants in fixed rent contracts,” he said. He said the high court had stopped cultivation on the land but it had not allowed the administration to seize the stock.

Yaseen and Shah have been contesting a legal battle over the ownership of the plot in Kotli Mansoh village for over a decade. Both claim that the plot had been allotted to their families by the government on migration from India and settlement in the village after partition in 1947.

Ajmal said he was cultivating the 67 acres for 22 years. He said he had leased the land from Shah for an annual rent of Rs30,000 per acre. All of the produce, he said, was his property under the rental agreement.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 1^st, 2012.