LAHORE, Aug 24: Justice Hamid Ali Shah of the Lahore High Court on Friday dismissed a petition challenging the Model Town Society’s decision of leasing out a prime piece of land to an international chain of cash and carry wholesale stores.

The judge declared the petition non-maintainable because the petitioners did not avail themselves of the alternative remedy prior to approaching the court. “Under the law they could assail the land lease and changes to the master plan before registrar and the secretary local government, respectively, but the petitioners did not do so,” the court observed.

The constitutional jurisdiction of the court could not be employed merely on the grounds that challenging the matter before a different forum was inconvenient. Entertaining the petition would tantamount to depriving the other forum of its relevant statutory jurisdiction, the court said.

The residents of the society had submitted before the court that a land designated for garden in the master plan could not be leased out for any other purpose without amending the plan.

The court also ruled that the petitioner’s objection that the LDA could not permit amendment to the master plan as it could only be sought from the Gulberg Town Municipal Administration had no legal sanctity.

The judge explained that the approval and sanction of the scheme that falls within the area of the City District Government Lahore vested with the LDA under the Development Scheme (Regulation) Rules, 2005, and the respondent society had approached the right forum for the conversion of its proprietary for commercial use.

However, the court decided the the LDA’s decision could also be assailed before the secretary local government.