KARACHI, Nov 5: Referring to the Supreme Court’s indulgence in the land allotment issue in Gwadar, leader of the opposition in the Senate Mian Raza Rabbani said on Saturday that this land scam had once again exposed the government’s policy of encouraging and patronising the land mafia and cronies.

He demanded that a parliamentary committee be constituted to inquire into the matter.

Mr Rabbani, who is also the deputy secretary general of the Pakistan People’s Party, claimed the military-led regime stood exposed on two accounts in the allotment of plots in Gwadar. Its claim of development for the betterment of Balochistan and its people and the issue of transparency stood exposed.

He claimed that the regime had already been indicted by the Supreme Court in the Pakistan Steel case.

Had it been a democratic government commanding moral authority it would have resigned immediately after the Supreme Court’s judgment.

Now again a division bench of the Supreme Court comprising of Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice Raja Fayaz Ahmad, in civil petition No 123-Q/2006, while granting leave had observed, “The allotment of land in Gwadar has been made in violation of the policies formulated by the government itself. The discretionary power has been exercised in an arbitrary and capricious manner which has been cited as a clear example of abuse of authority and misuse of power. Nobody knows how the settled land owned by the state has been transferred to private sector, that too on peanut price which depicts lack of transparency and mismanagement”.

Mr Rabbani pointed out that the Supreme Court had observed that the provincial government and the Board of Revenue could not be absolved from the responsibility of illegal allotments, sale, disposal and preparation of record-of-rights in favour of private persons, as it prima facie seemed to be the benefit of big barons could not have been distributed in accordance with the whims and wishes of the government having no sanctity of law.

He pointed out that the judgment had further stated, “Every allotment, sale and disposal of land appears to have been made in dubious and suspicious manner which speaks a volume about it”.

Mr Rabbani pointed out that through this leave granting order the Supreme Court cancelled all allotments of land made by the government to ministers, Senators, MNAs, MPAs civil bureaucracy and provincial judiciary and directed all records of all transactions made so far should be submitted before the Registrar of the Supreme Court within four weeks.

It also recommended that a larger bench of the court should be constituted to hear this matter.

After their observation, he said, there remained no moral, political or legal justification for the federal and provincial governments to continue in office. He alleged the government was big business-friendly and did not hesitate to plunder national assets in order to maximise profits of multi-nationals.

He said that the issue, as it concerns the national resources of a federating unit, would be raised in the Senate which he claimed was the custodian of the right of the federation.

He demanded that a parliamentary committee should be constituted to inquire into the matter.