Land dispute: Model Town Society stopped from listing LHC judge as member

LAHORE: Justice Ijazul Ahsan of Lahore High Court (LHC) has stayed the process of listing an LHC judge as member of the Model Town Cooperative Housing Society.

“The court has issued a notice to the respondents for April 16,” Advocate Ahmed Awais, counsel for Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar, Ghulam Moinuddin Javed and Sajid Arif Nomani, told The Express Tribune.

The petitioners say the judge has apparently agreed to purchase their property from a land grabber.

The judge suspended the operation of an order of the circle registrar of cooperative societies directing the Model Town Cooperative Housing Society to list Justice Abdul Sami Khan as a member.

The petitioners submitted that they were legal heirs of the late Shehzadi Badshah Begum who, being a refugee claimant, had been allotted an eight-kanal bungalow (78-C Model Town) on November 18, 1959.

They said they were owners in possession of the property. They said that according to society bylaws, no transaction regarding sale or purchase of the property could be made without obtaining a no-objection certificate (NoC) from the society. They said any person possessing a property in Model Town was required to be its member.

Advocate Awais told the court Kamran Sarfraz, a land grabber, had forged the sale deed of two kanals of the property for Rs2 million. He said that on June 25, 2014, Sarfraz had sold the land to Justice Khan for Rs6 million a kanal.

Awais said Sarfraz’s father had earlier been in litigation with the petitioners and that the court had ruled in the favour of his clients. He said that on September 9, 2014, Justice Khan had filed an application with the Model Town Cooperative Housing Society secretary requesting him to grant him the society’s membership.

He said that on December 29, 2014, the society management had replied to the judge saying, “You have apparently purchased the plots from Mr Kamran Sarfraz, son of Sarfraz Khan, who is not owner/member of the said property. As per Model Town Society record, the ownership of the said plot vests in the names of the legal heirs of Shehzadi Badshah Begum and the subsequent transferees.”

Awais said Justice Khan had then filed an application with the Cooperative Housing Society registrar requesting him to direct the Model Town Society secretary to list him as a member.

He said the society management had later told the registrar that Sarfraz was neither owner of the land nor a member of the society.

On December 2, 2014, the registrar observed that he had no jurisdiction to deal with the matter, Awais said. However, he said, the registrar had directed the society to decide the application of Justice Khan within two weeks.

Awais said that on February 26, 2015, the circle registrar had directed the society to list Justice Khan as its member. He said the circle registrar had no jurisdiction to pass such an order. He accused the circle registrar of pressuring the society to cancel the petitioners’ membership.

Awais said neither Sarfaraz nor Justice Khan was a member of the society and that they had not obtained an NoC to execute the sale deed. He requested the court to declare the circle registrar’s order unlawful.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2015.