K-P land scam: Peshawar high court petitioned to cancel lease

Legal battle between federal govt and K-P govt in scam involving lease of land marked to PODB starts.

ISLAMABAD: A legal battle has started between the federal and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government in the scam involving the lease of 170 acres of land which was originally marked to the Pakistan Oilseed Development Board (PODB).

The Peshawar High Court is taking up a petition filed by the PODB, a department of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, on Wednesday (today), requesting the cancellation of the allotment in the name of Javed Iqbal of Rawalpindi. The court has further been petitioned to direct the K-P government to hand over the land back to the PODB.

The agriculture ministry moved the Peshawar High Court to reclaim ownership of its olive research station established in 1998 on 170 acres with the help of technology and support from Turkey and Italy.

PODB has hired advocate Mohammad Asif to fight the case. The K-P government had already cancelled the land allotment in the name of Javed Iqbal after the scam was published in The Express Tribune last week. However, K-P Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain has said that the multi-billion-rupee olive research station will be auctioned.

The developed olive research farm was secretly leased out by the K-P government on December 3, to one Javed Iqbal, said to be a front man of a top Awami National Party leader, in the name of a bogus construction company of Rawalpindi for twenty years. Police was used to forcibly get the land vacated.

The National Accountability Bureau has already launched an investigation into the Rs5 billion land scam.

The Rawalpindi address given in the lease documents by Javed Iqbal turned out to be fake which further deepened the mystery as to who was actually behind this crime.

In its petition, the PODB has informed the court that it was given the land by Auqaf on lease in 1998.

The land at the time of possession was barren and rain-fed. PODB spent millions of rupees to develop it.

The petition pleaded that the land was given to the PODB with the clear understanding that its lease would be extended.

PODB has now asked the court to direct Auqaf department to extend its lease.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 22^nd, 2010.