Lahore district administration has served notices to the management of 24 petrol pumps operating on state land despite the cancellation of their leases, a private media outlet reported Friday.
A bench of the Supreme Court (SC) had recently ordered the Punjab and city district governments to take over all 24 petrol pumps being run illegally and auction them through open bidding.
According to reports, complying with the top court’s orders, the district administration has directed the management of the petrol pumps to sell their stock by February 5, after which the authorities will take hold of the land and seal the sites.
“The district administration will not be bound to seek stay orders of courts after the ruling of the SC,” the notices said. Moreover, the fuel stations have been ordered to display banners informing the public of their closure on February 5.
Earlier, Lahore deputy commissioner (DC) had directed the assistant commissioners to serve notices to the illegal petrol pumps in their respective jurisdictions.
The DC had submitted a report to a two-judge bench, headed by former chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar, and said that 32 petrol pumps had been established on state land in the provincial capital. Four of them were established on the land of Municipal Corporation of Lahore (MCL), while 20 were on that of the provincial government.
The land of remaining eight pumps had already been acquired by the authorities for the Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) project, the court was told.
The DC had pointed out that owners of all 24 pumps had not been vacating the land for several years despite the fact that their leases had expired.
To this, the bench had observed that the court would not allow misappropriation of state land and ordered the DC to immediately seal the petrol pumps and put them on sale through auction.