ISLAMABAD: A special committee of the Senate has called for setting up a commission “to review, scrutinise and examine policies, rules and regulations” regarding allotment of military lands in the country.

In its report, the committee headed by Afrasiab Khattak of the Awami National Party has also called for addressing the issue of alleged misuse of defence lands.

The committee was set up by Senate Chairman Nayyar Bokhari in November last year after PPP’s Farhatullah Babar agitated through a motion over the non-payment of compensation to people of a dozen villages of Nowshera district for the land acquired from them for defence purposes.

The committee’s report, which was tabled in the house during its last session and which went unnoticed by the media, has also called for “placing the military land allotments and cantonments under the Ministry of Defence”, thus indirectly acknowledging that the ministry has no control over such matters and these are directly handled by military authorities.

The report points out that the committee held a total of six meetings between December last year and May this year, none of which was attended by the defence minister.

The report also says the committee asked for a list of commercial enterprises built over land acquired for a specific defence purpose by changing the nature of land usage.

The officials of the Military Lands and Cantonments department contended before the committee that the lists were not readily available and their preparation was tedious and time-consuming.

The department also contended that all past cases of irregular and unlawful change of land use from defence to commercial purposes had been condoned by the government but when asked to produce the record of such cases, it said it had none.

It only stated that irregularities had been condoned as a onetime measure at the time of approval of the new military land policy by the cabinet in 2007. However, neither the new land policy nor the condoning of past irregularities was debated, much less approved by the parliament, says the report.

When contacted, Mr Babar said the committee had intentionally not deliberated upon the composition of the proposed commission and its terms of reference. “We have left it to the executive to decide,” he remarked.

He said the report was aimed at “asserting democratic oversight” of the military and “its value and symbolism in the civilians’ struggle to regain the space lost to the military can hardly be disputed”.

About the issue of the Nowshera land, he said the villagers rejected the price fixed at the rate of Rs88 per marla and despite a court order that fixed the price at Rs1,500 per marla, they had been denied compensation.

Mr Babar said while the issue of payment of compensation was quickly resolved as the ministry had earmarked Rs1.56 billion in the budget for it, the matter of examining other issues in lands acquired for defence purposes proved “more protracted, difficult and evasive”.

He said it was unprecedented that all past illegalities were “condoned through an executive order” without even going into their nature and extent.

Despite repeated attempts, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif could not be contacted for his comments.

Published in Dawn, November 15th , 2014

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