BAHAWALPUR: The district appellate committee headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court has disposed of only 445 appeals out of total 4,549 fi led against rejection of applications for the allotment of free-of-cost land in Cholistan under the Punjab chief minister’s package.

It is learnt that out of total disposed of appeals (445), 424 have been accepted while the remaining 21 dismissed.

Cholistan Development Authority’s (CDA) revenue and colonies director Imam Baksh said the special appellate committee headed by retired Justice Farrukh Mahmood Malik would resume the hearing of remaining 4,104 appeals from next Monday.

The hearing of appeals had been taken in hand in February 2017 after the CDA, on the demand of those who were not declared eligible for the allotment of free land, had constituted three appellate committees in each district headquarters to hear appeals of the rejected applicants.

Mr Baksh said the committee would continue hearing of appeals till the completion of the task.

The CDA has already selected around 15,000 applicants out of total at least 50,000 eligible for the allotment of land under the CM package.

Every applicant would be allotted twelve-and-a-half acres of land free of cost in Cholistan. But, thousands of other applications were rejected for not meeting Board of Revenue’s criteria (as the officials stated) and other terms and conditions.

With the present slow speed of hearing/disposal of appeals, it appears that the task may take months.

Separate appellate committees are also hearing appeals in two other districts of Bahawalnagar and Rahim Yar Khan.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2017