LAHORE, Dec 1: A full bench of the Lahore High Court on Friday adjourned till Dec 15 the hearing of a bail petition of 10 people who challenged the Illegal Dispossession Act, enacted in 2005, pleading that certain provisions of the law required interpretation as they were so ambiguous as they were prone to be misused.

Comprising Justice Asif Saeed Khan Khosa, Justice Syed Shabbar Raza Razvi and Justice Tariq Shamim, the court allowed the deputy attorney-general time to produce the enactment as passed by the National Assembly and its text available with the law ministry so that the act could be examined in the context of the bail petition. The court also directed the Punjab advocate-general to assist in examining the law judicially.

The bail petition, filed by Zahoor, his son and eight others, stated that the law was meant for action against landgrabbers but his own brother, Muhammad Akram and others, attempted to exploit it by securing their conviction in the property case which was disputed and families of the two brothers were engaged in lengthy litigation.

The court allowed Zahoor Ahmad, Muhammad Irshad, Zafar Iqbal, Muhammad Amin, Muhammad Shafiq, Muhammad Akbar and four others to be released on bail. The court also suspended the sentence of five-year imprisonment to each one of them as awarded by a Gujranwala’s AD&SJ court for violating section 3 of the act.

Petitioner Zahoor Ahmad submitted that his brothers Muhammad Akram and Muhammad Aslam involved them for taking illegal possession of their agricultural land in a village near Gujranwala measuring 11 kanals and 10 marlas. The land was owed by their forefathers and a dispute over its inheritance had arisen some years back.

He submitted that certain provisions of the act were unclear and needed interpretation as they failed to address to the situation where family property was in dispute.

He submitted that these ambiguous provisions of the law should be interpreted by superior courts to avoid their misuse.