Murree forests: LHC seeks opinion on suo motu jurisdiction

LAHORE: Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah of the Lahore High Court on Tuesday sought the opinion of a provincial law officer on the court’s suo motu jurisdiction.

Justice Shah was hearing an application from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Pakistan to become a party in a pending suo motu case about the illegal occupation of 15,000 kanals of forestland in Murree. Then chief justice Khwaja Muhammad Sharif had taken the suo motu notice in 2010. Justice Shah said he wanted to decide the high court’s jurisdiction in suo motu proceedings before taking up the matter. The law officer sought time to prepare and the judge postponed the hearing for Wednesday (today).

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2013.