LDA avenue 1 replied on Wednesday, January 27, 2016 12:20 PM PST
The Lahore High Court has set aside the acquisition of land of housing societies by the Lahore Development Authority for 'LDA Avenue-I'. The authority launched the Avenue-I housing society in December 2002 and for the purpose acquired 14,458 Kanals & nine Marla of Chiniot Co-operative Housing Society, 328 Kanals of Islamic Research Scholars Co-operative Housing Society Limited, 320 Kanal of Electrical & Mechanical Engineers (EME) Co-operative Housing Society Limited, 182 Kanal of Punjab Board of Revenue Employees Co-operative Housing Society Limited and 300 Kanal of Punjab Civil Secretariat Employees Co-operative Housing Society.
The housing societies had challenged the acquisition and got relief as the court allowed their petitions. The petitioners argued that they all were registered co-operative societies and acquired or entered into agreement to acquire the landed property, mainly for the purposes of accommodating their respective members. They said the land, which was already earmarked for a specific purpose, would not again be acquired in the garb of "public purpose" by providing the same facility of residential plots to the contributors for LDA Avenue-I Scheme.
They also said the notification issued under Section 17(4) read with Section 6 of the Act, was defective in nature and it did not qualify to be a valid notification under the land acquisitioning laws. The authority's counsel refuted the contentions by the petitioners, saying that schemes prepared, announced and undertaken by the petitioners were not validly sanctioned schemes by the authority and unless there was a sanction or approval by the authority, no such scheme could be continued in the area fall within the control of the authority.
He also argued that the public purpose for which the authority had shown its intention to acquire the land, including one owned or possessed by the petitioners, would be a valid and legal process of acquisition and the authority would have a preferential right to be considered on a better footing than that of the petitioners societies to acquire the land for the purposes of establishing a housing scheme thereon.
The court said the members of the petitioners' societies were purchasers of the shares of the society and their shares could, in no way, be subject-matter of land acquisitioning proceedings. He said the direct issuance of notification under Section 17(4) of the Act, by dispensing with the requirements as provided in Section 5 and 5-A of the Act was again a nullity in the eye of law, for, the Collector and the acquiring agency failed to demonstrate as to the emergent nature of the affair.
He noted that by insertion of Article 10-A in the Constitution, fair trial had been taken as a fundamental and basic right of the citizens and depriving any interested person from raising any objection as to his intended deprivation from his any right, would be an act, which can conveniently be termed as violative to the concept of fair trial.
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