Editor
ISLAMABAD:
The Supreme Court has thrown out the declare of the army over the possession of the Margalla National Park land.
In January 2022, the then Islamabad High Court Chief Justice, Athar Minallah, had additionally declared that the declare of the Remount, Veterinary and Farms Directorate of Pakistan Army, relating to 8,068 acres of land within the notified National Park space is in violation of the Ordinance of 1979 learn with the Ordinance of 1960 and the Master Plan.
“The RV&F Directorate, QMG Branch, GHQ’ (Remount, Veterinary and Farms Directorate, Quarter Master General Branch, General Headquarters of Pakistan Army) the Directorate will not be a authorized entity. The Directorate bypassed the Government of Pakistan and immediately took up the matter with the CDA. It acknowledged that by means of notification No.266 dated 23 April 1910 land was being ‘utilised by Military Farm Rawalpindi for manufacturing of hay for Army animals.
“Permitting using land doesn’t confer its possession, nor may possession have been conferred on the Directorate, a non-legal entity. It additionally escaped the eye of the personnel of the Directorate that the one involved statutory entity was the Wildlife Board,” says a 25-page detailed judgement authored by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa within the Monal restaurant lease case.
The judgement notes that the directorate and its director-general asserted rights to the land of the National Park on the tenuously unbelievable premise that within the yr 1910, the Veterinary, Remount and Farms unit of the British Army was allowed to make use of some land of the National Park for fodder. Major General Muhammad Samrez Salik, was the Director-General of the Directorate, who had affixed his signature and official stamp on the RV&FD Lease, by means of which Luqman Ali Afzal ( Monal restaurant’s proprietor) was bestowed the favour of a seventeen-year lease by the Directorate.
“The Federal Government was appropriate in disabusing Major General Muhammad Samrez Salik and the Directorate of their fanciful notion {that a} 110-year-old permission to gather fodder didn’t nor may bestow possession rights to such land.
It stated that the applying was filed by the federal authorities whereby it acknowledged in writing that the RV&FD Lease was void ab initio’, and that no document is offered to indicate ‘that the Federal Government has given any approval to execute the stated Lease Agreement,’ that’s, the RV&FD Lease. However, Mr Afzal continued to say the purported rights of the Directorate”
CJP Isa famous {that a} lessee can’t unilaterally discard his lessor, substitute it with one other after which develop into the lessee of the latter, however that is what Mr Afzal did. He unilaterally forged apart CDA, his Lessor, and the CDA Lease and elected to develop into the purported lessee of the Directorate below the RV&FD Lease. Mr Afzal had obtained the possession of the property from CDA pursuant to the CDA Lease and had agreed to pay lease to CDA, however then he stopped paying lease to CDA and had the temerity to hunt the refund of the lease already paid to the CDA.
“Nonetheless, Mr Afzal retained the possession of the property which he had acquired from CDA below the CDA Lease whereas he put up his untenable rivalry. Rarely such audaciousness, and full disregard of the regulation has been witnessed,” learn the judgement.
“Afzal apparently cultivated and developed relationships with the highly effective, and his brother was within the paperwork who then rose to the best place in it. Therefore, he might have deluded himself in assuming that he was above the regulation. He violated the regulation for years and went on increasing his restaurant by encroaching into and destroying the National Park. The protected standing of the National Park was of no consequence to him and to the federal government servants who supported him.”
“Money, connections, affect and/or nepotism supplanted the regulation and the protected standing of the National Park, first by getting CDA to execute the CDA Lease after which the Directorate to execute the FV&FD Lease. Every alternative was given to Mr Afzal to adjust to the regulation, which he had been repeatedly flouting for eighteen years. Probably it lastly dawned that this Court would make sure the regulation is abided by and that it will additionally be certain that the National Park is protected which made him and the opposite restaurant house owners pause and replicate.”
During the listening to of those circumstances and earlier too frequent fires had erupted within the National Park. The Court was knowledgeable that the reason for these fires may be that Monal, La Montana and Gloria Jeans have been fashionable venues and each day attracted 1000’s of shoppers and any of whom may carelessly throw a lit match or a cigarette, with out first extinguishing it, which might ignite the dry grass and twigs mendacity on the forest ground of the National Park. These blazes are tough to place out and require appreciable manpower and sources, together with repeated sorties by helicopters carrying water to throw on the fires.
The proprietor of La Montana and Gloria Jeans, particularly, Dr. Muhammad Amjad, was additionally issued a discover by this Court, however he elected to not disclose how he managed to get possession on the mountain ridge subsequent to Mr. Afzal’s restaurant and who, if anybody, granted him permission to assemble and run his institutions. However, it’s unimaginable that with out having connections with these on the energy centre of the nation he would have been in a position to elevate unlawful buildings and to take action by disregarding the legal guidelines of Pakistan.
He too had connections with General Pervez Musharraf, who after his retirement had made Dr. Muhammad Amjad his political social gathering’s Chairman. When private contacts with the paid servants of the State, trump the legal guidelines of Pakistan, and bureaucrats come to serve the curiosity of lawbreakers it’s an abomination.
“The priciest land in Islamabad is the land going through the Margalla Hills; costs begin decreasing the additional one strikes away from this pure marvel. Resultantly, each profiteer has set his eyes on this unbuilt actual property which in all probability is the most costly land in Pakistan. The National Park land has through the years been encroached upon, which may solely have occurred with the involvement of the officers of CDA and different senior bureaucrats.
“The National Park land is below grave and imminent hazard. The wealthy, highly effective and well-connected need to wrest it away for his or her private use and/or achieve. This should cease. The individuals can’t be disadvantaged of the National Park, its natural world, and of the advantages of this wonderful nationwide asset. Government servants who collude with land grabbers additionally want reminding that it’s the individuals who pay their salaries and it’s them who they serve, and whose curiosity they have to shield. Those who neglect this elementary reality are a drain on the general public exchequer.
Private pursuits and people marauding public lands should not be allowed to deprive the individuals of Pakistan and future generations of it. If we lose the National Park the hostile results of greenhouse gases, deforestation, soil erosion, air pollution and local weather change will likely be exacerbated to the detriment of the individuals and future generations”
“The elementary proper to life, and to stay it with dignity (respectively Articles 9 and 14 of the Constitution) is to stay in a world which has an abundance of all species. It has by now been scientifically nicely established that if the earth turns into bereft of birds, animals, bugs, bushes, crops, clear rivers, unpolluted air, soil will probably be the precursor of our destruction, and scientific analysis establishes that nothing in nature is with out worth and objective,” says CJP Isa.
