ISLAMABAD, Dec 17: The Supreme Court has ruled that allotment and lease of state’s agricultural lands to the members of armed forces is not in consonance with the government guidelines for the disposal of state lands.
A three-member of the Supreme Court, after examining a notification which governs leasing of state lands, observed: “We have no hesitation in our mind, after having an in-depth evaluation of the said notification, that it does not find mention for allocation, allotment, leasing of such available state land to armed forces.”
The three-member bench, comprising Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Sardar Raza Khan and Justice Karamat Nazir Bhandari, quoted famous American writer John Steinbeck, saying that when property accumulates in too few hands, it is taken away.”
Deciding the case titled Brigadier Bashir versus Abdul Karim and others in civil appeal No 30 of 1999, the bench opposed the accumulation of property in few hands.
The apex court advised the appellant, Brigadier Mohammad Bashir, to be satisfied with “few hundreds acres of land allotted to him” and spare the few acres allotted to a landless tenant.
The Supreme Court ruled that the relevant notification issued under section 10 of the Colonization of Government Lands Punjab Act, 1912, as amended by the West Pakistan in 1965, clearly prohibited allotment of agricultural land to any person “who is in the service of central/ provincial government, any development authority, or a semi-government institution or local body.”
Justice Javed Iqbal who authored the judgment, after reproducing a paragraph from “Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck, observed: “It is high time we should learn a lesson from history. What would happen otherwise, need no comments.”
Brigadier Mohammad Bashir was allotted 400 kanals of land in District Bahawalpur from a chunk of 33,866 acres of agricultural land which the government of Punjab handed over to the adjutant-general of the Pakistan Army for allotment to army officers in 1993.
The brigadier had a dispute with a landless tenant who also obtained a lease of 96 kanals (12 acres) in 1965.
After examining the controversy in detail, the Supreme Court observed that it had been brought to the court notice that Brigadier Mohammad Bashir had been allotted “few hundred acres of land” and advised the officer to be satisfied with what he had got, instead of approaching different forums to get more land which could not be allotted to him.
The apex court bench quoted a paragraph from “Grapes of Wrath” by American writer John Steinbeck (1902-1968) to convey its point that accumulation of land in few hands led to revolutions.
Justice Javed Iqbal observed that he was not sure whether or not it would be relevant but he could not help quoting a paragraph from John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath which is as under:
“And the great owners, who lose must their lands in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored three cries of history. The land fell in few hands, the number of dispossessed increased, and every effort of great owners was directed at repression. The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring revolt so that it might be stamped out. The changing economy was ignored, plans for the change ignored; only means to destroy revolt were considered while the causes of revolt went on.”
The novel Grapes of Wrath (1939), seen as a 20th century classic, was considered to have helped implement agricultural reforms.
