LAHORE, May 31: A division bench of the Supreme Court has dismissed several leaves to appeal moved by the Punjab chief settlement commissioner against the allotment of land to 18 families of refugees. Comprising Justices Khalilur Rehman Ramday and M. Javed Buttar, the SC bench took a serious notice of the settlement department and the Border Area Committee’s failure to allot land to the refugee families and dragging them into unnecessary litigation since 1947.

The apex court also inflicted Rs90,000 fine as cost on the settlement department with the instructions that the refugee families be paid the amount equally within a month and submit receipts of payment with the SC registrar for court’s information.

As many as 100 people of 18 families, who migrated to Pakistan in 1947, were given lands against their claims at Ghazi Kakka in Ferozewala tehsil, Sheikhupura. But the settlement department did not issue them allotment letters. It, however, issued them ejectment notices in 1967 with the contention that the Border Area Committee had notified their land falling in the border area. They were informed that the Punjab government would allot to them an alternative land before ejectment.

Subsequently, the department allotted them land in Lodhran district which the forest department declined to accept and refused them allotment.

The families moved the Lahore High Court in a writ petition in 1970 which, besides making woeful contentions, stated that the settlement department had allotted the land from where they were ejected to certain senior officers of the armed forces, including the late Lt-Gen Ghulam Jilani Khan, later the Punjab governor, and Lt-Gen Akhtar Abdur Rehman.

The high court accepted the writ petition in 1979 with the instructions to the department that the petitioners should be allotted an alternative land. The department then allotted land to the affected families in Lahore, Kasur, Muzaffargarh, Sheikhupura, Bhakkar, Multan, Rawalpindi and Layyah. But it did not issue them allotment letters.

The refugees then moved the LHC in a contempt of court petition and on the issuance of notices, the department instituted an inquiry team, headed by Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar, which announced a verdict in favour of refugees in 1994. Thereafter, Deputy Settlement Commissioner Maqbool Husain Shah issued allotment letters to the claimants in 1995.

However, the chief settlement commissioner approached the LHC in 1999 against the allotment of land by his own department. The LHC dismissed the appeal after which he moved the Supreme Court in several leave to appeal petitions.

The Supreme Court dismissed the petitions on May 25 this year with the observation that it was pained to observe that the department was not implementing the LHC decision of 1979 and had not only committed illegality, but also dragged the refugees in prolonged litigation for several decades.

A major feature of the case is that the third generation of the refugee families pursued the case and several heads of the settlement department and senior officers came to ultimately decide it in favour of the families after 48 years of their migration to Pakistan.