LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Saturday announced its verdict in a 1956 land dispute case in the favour of Punjab government.
Justice Anwaar Hussain ordered Atta Rasool, the appellant, to return to the provincial government the land he had been granted in Khushab in 1956 on lease for a period of three years for the “grow more food” scheme introduced by the then government.
The seven-page decision has also been called a judicial precedent.
The decision reads that the case was related to eight kanals of state-owned land — situated in Rakh Jamali, Tehsil Nurpur of District Khushab — which had been granted to Rasool for a period of three years.
The verdict further declared that Rasool, who had been occupying the land, could not prove that the land was again allotted to him on the completion of the original three-year term.
It says that despite the fact that the Punjab government had been trying to auction the land for the last six decades, Rasool was blocking these attempts through litigation.
The court directed the Punjab government to not only get its land back but also order the citizen to pay tax on it, starting from 1958.
The land was confiscated by the Extra Assistant Commissioner (Colonies) in 1967. The official, however, in 1977 declared the allotment of land to Rasool as legal. But a member of the Board of Revenue in 1994 declared the declaration null and void.
After several applications filed by Rasool were rejected, he took the provincial government to a civil court, which also rejected the claim in 2011.
When he challenged the decision of the civil court, the ruling came in his favour, following which the Punjab government moved the high court.
