ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad district administration has challenged a court order in favour of Mauza Lakhwal residents regarding the ownership of land on the banks of Rawal Dam.

The matter of encroachments on the dam’s land was taken up by the Prime Minister’s Office after which a joint team of the Capital Development Authority (CDA), Punjab Irrigation Department’s Small Dam Organisation (SDO) and the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration started a campaign for demolishing the encroachments.

However, a local landlord, Jamil Abbasi, who had constructed wedding marquees which had caught the PM’s office’s attention, secured a court order in his favour.

“We recently challenged the court order in favour of the local of Mauza Lakhwal,” said Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Mushtaq Ahmed. He said Mauza Lakhwal was closed in the ‘60s.

“The owner, SDO or the CDA, was given possession of the land. But a couple of years ago the locals filed a civil suit with the court and it was decreed in their favour,” he explained.

DC claims court order was made without hearing ICT, CDA

“We have filed an application under section 12(2) of the Civil Procedure Code against the court order, which was announced without hearing the ICT administration and the CDA,” the DC said.

According to section 12(2), if a decree, order of judgment is obtained by fraud, misrepresentation or where a question of jurisdiction may arise, such an order, decree or judgment shall be challenged through an application in the same court and no separate suit shall begin. The DC said following the PM’s Office directives, a committee was looking into the case under his supervision.

Meanwhile, a case is also being heard in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) where the locals filed a petition seeking an extension to the stay order granted earlier on the campaign against 419 kanals of land near the dam.

Through their counsel, the petitioners pleaded that Lakhwal Mauza, a revenue estate, spread over 5,925 kanals and five marlas of which 2,874 kanals and eight marlas were acquired by the CDA and 2,632 kanals and 16 marlas by the Rawalpindi Land Acquisition Collector for the construction of the dam.

They said approximately 419 kanals and five marlas were not acquired by the two organisations which meant the petitioners were the owners of the land and had the right to construct on it.

However, DC Ahmed said his organisation would also be contesting the case in the IHC. Though there is a ban on constructions in a two kilometre radius of Rawal Dam, a number of houses have been built on its banks. The owners of the houses argue the land is theirs while CDA and SDO, which are custodians of the dam, are not certain about the limits of their land.

CDA Deputy Director General Land and Rehabilitation Abdul Salam told Dawn that after the CDA had acquired the land in the 60s, it had termed Lakhwal a closed mauza. “We are looking into how the sale and purchase was done in a mauza which was closed in the 60s,” he said.

An official of the ICT revenue department said the Islamabad District Administration was planning on a fresh demarcation in Mauza Lakwal in order to determine the ownership of the land on the banks of the dam.

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2016