LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has directed the chief settlement commissioner of Punjab to hold an inquiry to find out any allotment of property made in the name of an Indian citizen in Pakistan.

The court issued this order while dismissing a petition challenging an order of a Lahore’s civil court in litigation among the legal heirs of Muhammad Umar who died in 2002 in India.

The legal heirs are also permanent residents of India and one of them had initiated a civil litigation through a special attorney for the transfer of land allotted to their predecessor being an evacuee citizen.

Abdul Rehman and other heirs submitted through counsel that Umar was a displaced person and was allotted land measuring 23 kanal 9 marla at Malku village in Lahore Cantonment in 1955. They said Umar was in possession of the land in question and died in 2002 and after his death, one Mumriaz Khan fraudulently got entered in the revenue record inheritance mutation which was later cancelled in 2004.

They said they were legal heirs of Umar and they also got a decree from the civil court in 2009.

Justice Chaudhry Muhammad Iqbal, in his verdict, observes that the record of the suit shows that the petitioners are permanent residents of India and that Umar, predecessor of the petitioners, was also a permanent resident of India who never migrated to Pakistan.

The judge observes that Umar was not an evacuee person and was not entitled for any allotment against any evacuee claim in Pakistan and if he had obtained any allotment that was the result of manifest fraud, forgery and misrepresentation.

“The petitioners are also permanent residents of India who are pursuing the instant proceedings of this petition through their special attorney, as such, they are legally debarred to claim any allotment as evacuee persons in Pakistan,” the judge adds.

The judge dismissed the petition being devoid of any force with cost of Rs500,000 to be recovered as arrears of land revenue.

The judge also directed the chief settlement commissioner to conduct a detailed inquiry as to whether any allotment exists in the names of Muhammad Umar, predecessor of the petitioners, or the petitioners and if any other allotment is found to be in existence in record, the commissioner shall cancel the same forthwith and retrieve possession of the land in favour of the state.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2021