RAWALPINDI, Oct 15: A piece of land in the city has become the bone of contention between Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and National Logistic Cell (NLC) with the former moving Lahore High Court’s Rawalpindi bench for getting back the possession.

In the petition filed with the LHC by CAA’s legal adviser Obaid Abbasi, the authority cited the managing director of the NLC and its project director (north) as respondents. A single bench of the court will take up the petition on Tuesday.

It may be mentioned that both the CAA and the NLC are the strategically important departments of the Ministry of Defence.

The petition claimed that CAA was the lawful owner of the 52.65 kanals located along Rawal Road. Last year, the NLC sought permission to set up a site office for the construction of the nearby Chandni Chowk Flyover.

The petition said the request was examined at a meeting of senior officers of the NLC, CAA, Ministry of Defence, Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and the functionaries of the Punjab government and it was agreed that the permission for the establishment of the site office may be awarded. It was also decided that the NLC would route the project proposal to the CAA and PAF through the ministry.

The parties agreed that the commissioner Rawalpindi would send the project design to the defence ministry and the permission would be issued after getting inputs from the CAA and PAF. The handing over of the possession of the land would be under an agreement specifying the time duration and rent along with other terms and conditions.

The petition added that the monthly rent of the land was Rs6.6 million but during the course of negotiation the NLC wanted a concession. However, the NLC was told that there was no such precedent available on record and the rent was the minimum fixed by the CAA board.

The CAA time and again requested the NLC to sign and execute a proper licence agreement but to no avail. In the meanwhile, the CAA turned the land into its site office in October last year, it contended. The flyover was opened for traffic on March 11 this year.

Despite issuance of legal notice in January, nothing has been done regarding payment of dues and removal of the machinery from the land. As a result, CAA and the manager of Benazir Bhutto International Airport also filed a complaint with the Waris Khan police in February, it added.

According to the petition, a separate suit for the recovery of arrears is pending adjudication in a civil court but no representative of the NLC appeared before the judge in six consecutive dates of hearing.

The petitioner requested the LHC to direct the NLC to vacate the land and clear the arrears.