GUJRAT: The district government has sealed a known Pakhtun restaurant and a patrol station illegally constructed at a six kanal of government land along the GT Road’ sbetween Kharian and Sara-i-Alamgir and the land revenue department has retrieved the land in favour of the forest department that actually owns the land.

Official documents revealed the then Punjab Chief Minister Nawaz Sharif had allotted the forest department’s six kanal at Rakh Pabbi Sarkar on a four-year-lease to his party’s MPA Mian Tariq Mehmood from Dinga on Oct 15, 1989. The lease was extended in 1991 for the further 30 years for the construction of the petrol pump at the site at the rate of Rs100 per kanal per annum which had to be revised after every four years. In 1993, MPA Mian Tariq was given permission for establishing a snack bar adjacent to the petrol pump and six years after that he had reportedly sold the land without any lawful authority and matter was reported by the land revenue department to the district collector about the matter.

Later, the new buyer had contracted a deal with another businessman who set up a restaurant at the site which was not permitted as per the law and the terms and conditions of the lease agreement.

Despite of all these violations of the law, none of the authorities had taken notice of the matter until the issue was raised suddenly by the forest department around four months back and a report was filed to the Gujrat district coordination officer by the official concerned of the forest department followed by another report by the Sara-i-Alamgir assistant commissioner.

Six-kanal land was leased out to MPA for Rs100 per kanal

After receiving the reports, DCO Liaqat Ali Chatha wrote a letter to the senior member Punjab Board of Revenue to seek permission for legal action against the occupants and retrieving the land in favour of the forest department though there was no need of any such permission since the DCO as the district collector could retrieve the government land under section 32/34 of the colonisation of the Government Land Act 1912.

The district collector issued the orders of sealing the restaurant and the petrol station following the approval of the board of revenue and the official team finally took possession of the land in favour of the forest department.

Official sources told Dawn action had been taken at the behest of a political figure since the owner of the restaurant and petrol station had allegedly declined to pay the additional amount to that politician who had demanded some monetary benefits from them.

When contacted, MPA Mian Tariq confirmed that he had sold the petrol station to a businessman of Kharian in 1999 and the restaurant had been built after and he had no concern with the matter. However, he said that since the lease amount had to be paid by the new owners and the government action might have been taken due to the non-payment of the lease amount or any other violation of the law.

However, the government record reveals that MPA Mian Tariq Mehmood has been the lessee of that site of six kanal piece of state land that has now been given in possession of the forest department.

Published in Dawn December 20th , 2014