LAHORE: Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed of the Lahore High Court (LHC), on Wednesday, set aside a notification by the Lahore Development Authority (LDA), according to which the transfer of residential plots to the residents in the Model Town Extension was to be cancelled.
Saeed issued the direction while disposing of petitions filed by the residents and also gave directions to the LDA land development-II director to hear the grievances of the petitioners on May 14, consequently deciding the matter strictly in accordance with the laws.
The judge was hearing a petition moved by the residents Nusrar Naseem, Anjum Nazir, Tariq Javed and several others. The petitioners’ counsels, Rana Asadullah Khan, and Shahzad Shaukat, submitted that the petitioners had purchased plots in the Model Town Extension, which the LDA had established in 1996 after acquiring private land, and later the petitioners had constructed their houses there.
The counsels said that all the transactions of the property purchase were on record with the concerned department and all required dues were deposited in the name of director estate management of the LDA. They said that after some time, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had initiated an inquiry against the LDA officers for their alleged irregularities in allotment of the plots in Model Town Extension. They said that after the NAB’s inquiry, the LDA cancelled the ownership of the petitioners’ properties without any notice.
The counsels alleged that the LDA had even started demolishing properties of many of the residents, however, the residents were able to obtain stay orders from the civil courts. They asserted that the LDA’s order of cancelling the ownership of the petitioners’ properties and their subsequent actions were “illegal, arbitrary and violated principles of natural justice”. The counsels had requested that the impugned order of the LDA be set aside and they be restrained from taking any illegal action against the petitioners’ properties.
