May 28, 2003	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 25,1424

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ISLAMABAD, May 27: The Punjab government on Tuesday said that insistence of a “refugee from India” to get prized land of 88 kanals in Faislabad was unreasonable, and the government was ready to accommodate him in other districts.

The Supreme Court had cautioned the revenue department officials on previous hearings that they would be sent to jail, if they failed to give land to the petitioner.

On April 24, the SC bench, headed by the Chief Justice, had issued warrants of three officials of the revenue department Faislabad for failing to implement a decision of allotting 88 kanals to a “refugee from India.”

The Punjab government, represented by Advocate General Punjab, Shabbar Raza Rizvi, has taken the stance that the government cannot give land to the petitioner in Faislabad, as it is neither evacuee property nor agricultural land, which can be allotted to the refugees under the law.

The land in question, measuring 88 kanals, was allotted to Yaqoob, a refugee coming from India on the basis of his claim in 1953. The government, through an order in 1958, exchanged over 5,000 acres in and around Faislabad, then called Lyllpure, with the Evacuee property.

The petitioner, Yaqoob, had filed a petition in the LHC in 1991 which held that he should be given the land. The Punjab government filed an appeal in the Supreme Court on the ground that a refugee could be allotted the land which was either evacuee or agricultural. The land in question was neither.

The Punjab government stated that after a notification in 1958, the land in question became the provincial state land which was only meant for expansion of Faislabad.