Imposing land reforms: Supreme Court orders fresh plea, widens field of respondents

Asks for making provincial govts, land commissions respondents.

ISLAMABAD:

Supreme Court on Thursday advised the petitioner in the Land Reforms Case to make provincial governments and land commission respondents and file a fresh petition as the matter was of immense public importance.

The petitioner Supreme Court Advocate Abid Hassan Minto has moved the Supreme Court to implement the land reforms introduced by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto through Martial Law Regulation 115 of 1972 and the Land Reforms Act, 1977.

He also urged the court to nullify the 1990 judgement of the appellate bench of the Federal Shariat Court (FSC) declaring land reforms un-Islamic.

In the land mark judgement in Qazalbash Waqf case the FSC had declared that no one can be deprived of lawfully acquired property.

A nine-member bench of the apex court headed by the Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry heard the petition and asked Minto to properly describe the nominating parties in the petition.



“This is an important case and anyone can become the party in this case whosoever wants so,” he said.

Justice Chaudhry said that it is a case of public importance and a notice should be issued in both Urdu and English newspapers informing the general public in this regard.

Land reform can be roughly explained as re-distribution of land among small land owners by taking land from large land owners to break large holdings so as to prevent concentration of land in a select few hands.

Land reforms were first introduced in the then East Pakistan in 1950, then by Ayub Khan in 1959 in the West Pakistan and later in the modern day Pakistan by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

Justice Chaudhry emphasised that it is very important to listen to all the parties. “There will be repercussions of the judgment if issued it without listening all the concerned parties and stakeholders,” he said.

Attorney General Munir A Malik said the Federal Land Commission will be party in this case.

Upon this, petitioner Abid Hassan Minto said that Federal Land Commission has nothing to do with this case.

The chief justice argued that the federal and provincial land commissions were made the parties in the Qazalbash Waqf’s case. “We have to listen to all the parties wholeheartedly, if it was to be handled properly.”

The chief justice did not accept the request of the petitioner to nullify the Qazalbash case, saying that it has been concluded and there is no reason to declare it nullify. “Whether you want to take back the expenditure made on the case,” he said addressing the petitioner.

The petitioner said that we don’t want to take back the expenses, but only to challenge the jurisdiction of Federal Shariat Court over the land reform issue.

However, Minto had earlier argued that the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court’s decision on Qazalbash petition was not binding on the apex court and it can be reviewed even now.

The petitioners – Awami Workers Party and others – maintained that the existing feudal system in the country rendered the current election process largely meaningless as a process that is supposed to entitle people to freely choose their true representatives.

The current system of land owning was fundamentally inhuman and exploitative. It was not only desirable, but necessary and absolutely according to the mandate of the Constitution that it should be abolished, they said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2013.