KARACHI: The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Wednesday expressed extreme annoyance over the failure of the Sindh Board of Revenue (SBR) and anti-encroachment force in retrieving encroached state land.
The large bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Tassaduq Hussain Jilani directed SBR to submit a detailed report outlining the state land recovered by SBR, action taken against encroachments, number of FIRs lodged against encroachments, case filed in anti-encroachment tribunals, and number of show-cause notices issued to illegal occupants under Sindh Public Property Act.
To a query of bench on how many FIRs have been registered against the land grabbers, SP encroachment Arif Aziz informed the court that so far 143 cases were registered regarding encroachments, out of which 46 were disposed of by declaring them untraced.
He told the court that for three months, he was posted as SP anti-encroachment cell and during his tenure only two FIRs were lodged against land grabbers.
At which one-member of bench snapped SP's statement meant there were no encroachments on the lands in the province. The bench expressed displeasure on the SP anti-encroachment force for his failure to retrieve illegally occupied land.
The bench also noted the absence of senior member of SBR and became visibly irked when it was informed that a senior BoR member could not appear before it due to an ailment.
Is it the policy of SBR that only ailing person could posted as a senior member Board of Revenue, one of judges remarked.
While hearing an application of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) seeking review of apex court s earlier restraining order against allotment of state land, the bench directed chief provincial law officer Abdul Fatah Malik to submit provincial governments land allotment policy in the court within 15 days.
Advocate Raja Irshad, representing ISI said that SBR has declined to allot the ISI 10 acres of land in Deh Mandro in Karachi while making an excuse that the apex court had stayed allotment of state land. He requested the court to review its earlier order so that land be allotted for residential purpose.
Justice Amir Hani Muslim said that state land could not be leased out on an application moved to Chief Minister Sindh, adding if the applicant, ISI required land for housing scheme for its employees than it should be allotted through a proper policy.
The bench inquired about the Sindh governments policy for allotting state land for residential purposes. AG told the court that there was no any policy in place for allotting state land for housing scheme.
Though, he requested the court to allow him some time to seek instruction from provincial authorities and submit a statement in this regard.
Chief Justice said that provincial government should frame a policy for leasing out the land that belonged to provincial government.