LAHORE, May 2: The Lahore High Court on Monday restrained the Lahore Development Authority from taking any coercive action against several residents of the Model Town Extension who challenged cancellation of their properties’ ownership by the authority. Admitting the petitions for regular hearing, Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed issued notices to LDA authorities and directed them to file a reply by May 4. Counsel for LDA Salman Mansoor received the notice. Tariq Javed, Anjum Nazir Butt, Atif Iqbal, Muhammad Tauhid and Nusrat Naseem have filed the petitions.
The petitioners said that being subsequent buyers they purchased plots in Model Town Extension, which the LDA established in 1996 after acquiring private land. Later, they built houses on these plots. They said all transactions of the property purchase were on record with the department concerned and all required dues were deposited in the name of estate management director of the LDA. The petitioners said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had initiated an inquiry against LDA officers for their alleged irregularities in allotment of the plots in Model Town Extension.
In the light of NAB inquiry, LDA cancelled title/ownership of their properties and started dispossessing them of their properties without any notice or hearing. The locals obtained stay orders from a civil court when the LDA started demolition of their properties. They prayed to the court to set aside the impugned order of the LDA and restrain it from taking any action against their properties. NOTICE TO GOVT: Justice Umar Ata Bandial of the Lahore High Court on Monday issued a notice to the federal government for May 16 on an application against unannounced power loadshedding.
Imtiaz Rashid Qureshi has attached his plea to a pending petition against power loadshedding and increase in tariff. He said people were already facing problems like price hike and unemployment and now loadshedding made their lives miserable. Plea against Musharraf: An application has been filed in the Lahore High Court, seeking directions to restrain former president Pervez Musharraf from taking part in politics.
The application was attached to a pending plea against Musharraf. The petitioner contended in his application that the Supreme Court found Musharraf guilty of treason therefore he could not form or head any political party. He asked the court to tell the authorities to dissolve Musharraf’s party. In his earlier plea, the petitioner said Musharraf dissolved an elected parliament without “any cogent reason just to save his skin”. He restrained judges of the Supreme Court and four high courts from performing their judicial duties and detained Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry along with his family members.
