Coop secy stopped from working

LAHORE:

Lahore High Court on Monday stopped the cooperatives secretary from performing official duties and issued him a contempt of court notice in a petition seeking directions for him to explain his decisions in a Model Town Cooperative Housing Society property dispute.

The secretary, Babar Tarar, was asked to respond to the notice by May 18. Justice Farrukh Irfan directed the department to send some other ‘responsible’ officer to appear before the court at the next hearing.

Earlier, Tarar submitted that the court could not interfere in his work and that he was not bound under law to obey court orders about his official duties. Justice Irfan dismissed the statement and directed him to stop serving duties as the cooperatives secretary.

Petitioners Fiza Naeem Bukhari and her five siblings, who are claiming to be the children of the late owner of three plots (no84,85 and 86) in J-Block of Model Town, had sought directives for the secretary to explain why he had changed his decision in their petition seeking inclusion of their names in the MTHS record as legal heirs of the owner.

They had said that Tarar first directed the cooperative societies’ registrar to add their names as legal heirs of the property owner but later withdrew his decision. They had stated that the MTHS mutated the plots in the name of one Rabia Salman Qureshi.

They had said they had challenged the move in a civil court as well as before the cooperatives societies’ registrar and both ruled in their favour. “The respondent had challenged the civil court and the registrar’s decisions before the secretary,” they said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 5^th, 2015.