The Lahore High Court (LHC) has referred 18 additional petitions challenging actions under the Punjab Property Ownership Act to a full bench, after the petitioners\u2019 objections were addressed. The court also sought complete records of all committee proceedings and issued a stay order.<\/p>\n
The hearing was presided over by Chief Justice LHC Aalia Neelum, with petitioners including Abubakar represented by advocates such as Shahid Rana.<\/p>\n
During the proceedings, the Chief Justice questioned the functioning of committees, noting that tribunals were supposed to be established under the Act to exercise authority over property possession, but the notifications for these tribunals were issued only after two and a half months. She asked under what legal authority committees were carrying out possessions in the interim.<\/p>\n
The court also inquired whether the provision requiring deputy commissioners to submit pending civil court cases to tribunals was being followed. The Chief Justice further questioned how possessions were being executed verbally without written orders, and whether such actions violated the law.<\/p>\n
The court highlighted that there is no provision in the Act allowing committees to enforce possessions; only tribunals can issue possession orders after completing proceedings. Petitioners\u2019 lawyers said that in some cases, deputy commissioners carried out possessions based on verbal instructions, which the Chief Justice termed a serious violation of the law.<\/p>\n
Officials argued that the rules for implementation were not yet finalized. In response, the Chief Justice asked how actions could legally proceed without proper rules, and how affected parties could challenge possession orders without written documentation.<\/p>\n
The LHC directed that the complete record of all committee actions be submitted and referred all cases to a full bench for further review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Lahore High Court (LHC) has referred 18 additional petitions challenging actions under the Punjab Property Ownership Act to a full bench, after the petitioners\u2019 objections were addressed. The court also sought complete records of all committee proceedings and issued a stay order. The hearing was presided over by Chief Justice LHC Aalia Neelum, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":68873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,16],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[213],"class_list":{"0":"post-69928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-latest","8":"category-pakistan"},"yoast_head":"\n