QUETTA, Dec 2: A Balochistan High Court division bench has suspended the orders of the provincial government, imposing a ban on the sale of private land in Gwadar district and directed that next hearing would be held after 10 days.

The bench comprised Chief Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed and Justice Akhtar Zaman Malghani here on Tuesday issued suspension orders on the joint petition filed by Khuda Bakhsh and 92 others challenging the decision of the Balochistan government that restricted the private land owners to sell their land in Gwadar.

The petitioners have pleaded that the board of revenue on directives of Chief Minister Jam Muhammad Yousuf has imposed a ban on the sale of private land in Gwadar which is a discriminatory policy to deprive a person who wants to sell his personal land.

The petitioners prayed to vacate the orders of the chief minister and allow the private landowners to dispose of their lands according to their own wish under the law.

The court in another case issued notice to provincial home secretary, deputy attorney general and advocate general of Balochistan in the appeal by Abdul Manan Achakzai who was awarded death penalty by trial court for an attempt to hijack a PIA plane to Kabul in 1988.

The Balochistan High Court had reprieved the capital punishment in life imprisonment and now the applicant has taken the plea that President Musharraf as chief executive had pardoned former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in hijacking case so keeping that precedence he prayed to remit his remaining imprisonment sentence.

In the third case the court acquitted two accused who were awarded life imprisonment by the Anti-Terrorist court Khuzdar in the murder case. The court accepted the submissions of Abdul Qadir and Maula Bakhsh who had filed appeal praying to set aside the verdict of the trial court that sentenced them for life imprisonment for killing Azizullah in Khuzdar district.