Complainant had moved court against actions of DCO Rawalpindi.
RAWALPINDI:
A judge of civil court was issued a show cause notice for seeking explanation for issuing stay order in a civil suit of Bahria Town.
Following the show cause notice, the honourable judge withdrew his June 15 stay order for maintaining status quo in the case.
It should be recalled that after the order of the Supreme Court issued on June 5, the DCO Rawalpindi told newsmen that he has constituted four committees to demarcate the land of the forest department situated in Rakh Takht Pari and Rakh Lohi Bher. He had said that these committees will start marking the land from June 17.
He had further told that notices have been issued in this regard to the relevant parties, including Bahria Town.
Bahria Town filed a civil suit against this action by the forest department in the civil court in Rawalpindi on June 13. Bahria Town maintained that the DCO has taken this action through misinterpretation of the Supreme Court judgment as under the Forest Act, Punjab Local Government Ordinance a DCO has authority to issue orders to mark the farm land only and not the forest land.
The court summoned DCO and the forest department on June 15. All the parties were present in the court on 15 June 2013. After hearing the arguments and reviewing the records, the court issued status quo order and postponed the hearing till June 20.
On Thursday, while assisting the court the counsel for the Bahria Town Muhammad Ilyas Shaikh Advocate Supreme Court said that the court had issued the order of status quo on June 15 under the Order 39 Rule (b) of civil code. On this the judge smiled and remarked that he has been issued a show cause notice and an explanation has been called from him on issuing stay order in this case.
The counsel for Bahria Town said that if the matter was so, he and his other lawyer colleagues would prefer to go to the district judge, “because the independent judiciary we have been hearing about should be so.”
The honourable judge asked the Bahria Town lawyer to continue his arguments.
As the judge went to his chamber after the hearing, he was summoned by the district judge in his chamber where DCO Rawalpindi was already present. After about half an hour the judge emerged from the chamber of the district judge and came straight to the court and issued verbally the brief order of cancelling the of status quo and fixed the date for the next hearing on July 6, and went back to his chamber.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 21st, 2013.
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