Justice Shezada Mazhar of the Lahore High Court on Monday referred a petition to the full bench headed by Justice Manshoor Ali Shah filed against the project of Elevated Expressway along with bus station and allied facilities from main Boulevard, Gulberg, Jail Road, to Motorway (M2).
The petitioners have filed the writ through their counsel Chaudhry Shoaib Saleem advocate and cited the district collector Lahore, LDA DG, commissioner, senior member Board of Revenue Lahore and the province of Punjab through its chief secretary as respondents.
The petitioners submitted that out of the total 813 kanal land required for the Elevated Expressway, more than 670 kanal land was situated in Mouza Nonarian and they were the major victims of this project.
They said the District Price Assessment Committee had assessed the value of land at a far less rate of Rs 31,250 per marla than the market value while it had itself acknowledged in the same meeting that the average value of each marla of the land falling in Nonarian was Rs 64,644 and Rs 80,000 for the purpose of stamp duty.
The petitioners said that the govt wanted to deprive them of their residential property at throwaway prices by ignoring all relevant laws and market value that they said was not less than the value of land situated in Mouza Shera Kot – Rs 0.9 million per marla.
They prayed the court to suspend the District Price Assessment Committee findings and direct them to re-assess the value of land of Mouza Nonarian keeping in view Section 23 of the Land Acquisition Act and all other relevant facts.
The full bench comprising Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Aminuddin Khan and Justice Shams Mahmood Mirza will take up the matter today besides all other connected petitions against the Elevated Expressway.