‘No records were burnt, they are with revenue officers’

Administration claims record were burnt in rioting after Benazir Bhutto's assassination in 2007.

KARACHI:

The Supreme Court judges were also keen to see what progress had been made on land records in three months. The administration has claimed they were burnt in the rioting after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in 2007.

“No record has been burnt, they have been kept at the homes of revenue officers,” pointed out Justice Amir Hani Muslim.

The court had ordered the registration of all unregistered state lands in Sindh, as it found that land grabbing was one of the major reasons behind violence in Karachi.

On November 1, 2012, the court had also stayed fresh allotments of unregistered state lands until the lost records were reconstructed. The judges had suggested the officers use Google Earth.

Additional Advocate General Adnan Karim Memon said the government had made a special law and an anti-encroachment cell was punishing encroachers. A senior member of the Sindh Board of Revenue had said the records of 151 dehs could not be re-complied, as they were completely lost. “Your report is eyewash,” said Justice Amir Hani Muslim, who has heard many cases on land grabbing over the years. “[About] 36,000 petitions on land litigation have been filed because the anti-encroachment cell has facilitated encroachers.”

He wanted to know why microfilming was not being used as a technique to preserve the records.

This matter is not a new one. In 2005, the Sindh High Court headed by Justice Muslim had ordered the government to survey all unregistered state lands and compile a record.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 8^th, 2013.