Illegal occupation: Property grabbers told to vacate shops, flat in Liberty

SC reprimands judge who ordered a stay against eviction

LAHORE: The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered two property grabbers to vacate shops and a flat in Liberty commercial zone and berated an additional district and sessions judge for issuing a stay order against eviction.

Judges who bring the judiciary a bad name cannot be tolerated, Justice Saqib Nisar, who was heading the three-member bench, said.

Petitioner Tauseef Ahmed of Gulberg said a civil court, the Lahore High Court and the Supreme Court had ordered the illegal occupants to vacate the shops and flat. However, occupants Zaheer Ahmed and Abdul Razzaq had misled Additional Sessions Judge Anjum Raza Sayed into issuing a stay order in their favour.

The Supreme Court summoned the judge and demanded an explanation. He submitted a report in court saying that he had immense workload that day and could not go through the case details. He said he had issued the stay order after hearing the lawyer’s conventional arguments.

Ahmed and Razzaq, who were present in court at that time, were told to vacate the premises by August 9.

Justice Nisar also said that the judiciary had no use for judges like Raza. Such judges cannot be tolerated. The high court must take administrative action against Raza, he said. “They have no right to sit in court rooms if they cannot mend their ways.”

The court also summoned the complete record of Ahmed’s case and issued a show cause notice to ADSJ Anjum Raza and asked him to appear in court on the next hearing.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 7^th, 2015.