LHC sets aside LDA order on Model Town Extension

The Lahore High Court (LHC) set aside on Wednesday a Lahore Development Authority’s (LDA) notification canceling property ownership of several Model Town Extension residents. Disposing of petitions by Model Town residents, Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed directed the LDA land development director -II to hold open court for the petitioners on May 14 and decide the matter in accordance with the court’s order.
At the previous hearing, the court had restrained LDA from taking coercive action against the petitioners who had challenged the cancellation of their ownership rights. The petitioners Tariq Javed, Anjum Nazir Butt, Atif Iqbal, Muhammad Tauhid, Nusrat Naseem and others had filed petitions through the counsels Rana Asadullah Khan and Shahzad Shaukat said they had purchased plots and later constructed houses on them in the Model Town extension established by LDA in 1996 after acquiring private land.
They said all property purchase transactions were on record with the department concerned and all required dues were deposited in the name of the LDA estate management director. The petitioners said that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had initiated an inquiry against the LDA officers for irregularities in allotment of the plots in the Model Town Extension. They said the LDA cancelled the ownership of their properties in lieu of the NAB investigation and started dispossessing them without issuing notice or granting opportunity of hearing.
They said demolishing work had been initiated on the properties of many other residents as well but they obtained stay orders from the civil courts. The petitioners said LDA’s orders of canceling ownership of their properties and subsequent action was illegal, arbitrary and violation of the principles of natural justice and prayed to the court to set aside the impugned orders of the LDA and restrain it from taking illegal action against their properties.