MANSEHRA: The Peshawar High Court’s Abbottabad Circuit Bench has provided an interim relief to former MNA Nawabzada Salauddin Saeed by issuing a stay order against the transfer of over 2,500 kanals of his land to the provincial government.

“The court has restrained the revenue department and district administration from mutating over 2,500 kanals of my land in Lassan Nawab and Shakoki areas of Mansehra district in the name of the government,” Mr Saeed told reporters in Oghi on Friday.

The deputy commissioner, acting on the directives of the anti-corruption establishment’s special wing, had initiated legal proceedings to transfer over 4,500 kanals of land in the said areas and so far, over 2,500 kanals were mutated in the name of the provincial government in May this year.

Mr Saeed said that while he was involved in a legal dispute with the KP government over 2,804 acres (around 22,000 kanals) of land in Ghazi tehsil

of Haripur district, the administration unlawfully transferred his and his family’s land in Mansehra district.

“As a descendant of the Nawabs of the former Amb State, which included Tanawal and Lassan Nawab, I filed a petition with the high court to stop the government from transferring our ancestral land. Now, the court has barred the administration and revenue department from further proceeding with land transfers mentioned in the petition,” he said.

The ACE’s special wing, in coordination with the Mansehra district administration and revenue department, launched an inquiry into the matter. A total of 2,529 kanals of land was transferred to the provincial government.

The revenue department also imposed a ban on the mutation of another 2,000 kanals of land in Lassan Nawab and Shakoki, which, the ACE claims, was illegally transferred to Mr Saeed and his family nearly two decades ago.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2025