PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday issued notices to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, Peshawar Development Authority and Peshawar commissioner seeking their response to a petition against a long delay in the grant of possession of plots in the Regi Model Town here.

A bench consisting of Justice Abdul Shakoor and Justice Syed Arshad Ali issued the order after holding preliminary hearing into the petition of 550 plot allottees, who requested it to declare the ‘denial’ of the possession of plots in the RMT zones I, II and V illegal and with ulterior motives.

Petitioners Mohammad Qaim Khan, Mohammad Iqbal and others, who claim to be representing 17,000 families, prayed the court to declare that the lingering land dispute between the Kukikhel Afridi tribe and the government is illegal and non-compliance with the terms agreed upon by elders of the tribe and the government on Feb 16, 1991.

They also sought orders for the respondents, including the provincial government and the PDA, to give them plot possession due to payments.

Holds preliminary hearing in Regi Town plot possession case

The petitioners requested the court to direct the government to stop members of Kukikhel tribe from building houses in the RMT and to settle the Maffey Griffith Line Peshawar to allow them to construct houses on their plots.

The bench directed the local government secretary, PDA director-general and Peshawar commissioner to file their respective comments to the petition.

Next date of hearing will be fixed later.

Advocate Saifullah Muhib Kakakhel appeared for the petitioners and said his clients were allottees of plots in the RMT, which was a project of the PDA, but possession of those plots had not been given to them despite allotment in 1993.

He said plots in the scheme’s zones III and IV were developed and houses were constructed on them.

The lawyer said the dates of allotment of plots in all zones was the same but due to dispute of the Maffey Grift Line between the Kukikhel tribe and the government over the ownership of land, the allottees of plots in three zones still awaited due rights.

He contended that some of them had purchased it from their original owners and that they had long been aggrieved by the denial of plot possession as the respondents didn’t take the dispute seriously and were not resolving it.

The lawyer said the aggrieved families totaled more than 17,000, while the land, which was disputed in zones I and II, measured 532 acres.

He said on Feb 16, 1991, a meeting was held by authorities with elders of the Kukikhel tribe which was also brought into writing and the terms on which the tribe agreed was duly signed by the authorised Malik Attaullah Jan Kukikhel.

The counsel, however, said the Kukikhel tribe created an issue from the Maffey Griffith Line.

He said the Kukikhels were continuously violating the Maffey Griffith Line and the terms agreed initially by them in the said meeting and were also constructing houses on that land in RMT and thus, causing irreparable loss to them.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2023