ISLAMABAD, July 31: The Supreme Court has adjourned the hearing of a mercy petition, instituted by the residents of Selkhatar —a picturesque rural village located at the foot of the Murree hills 15 kilometres from the Rawal Dam— against what they called expansion plans of the new Bahria Town Housing Society.

Earlier, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, after a chamber hearing on a suo motu action had served notices on Malik Riaz Hussain, the owner of Bahria Town and the Rawalpindi District Coordination Officer (DCO) for Tuesday.

However, the case could not be taken up and will now be heard on a date to be decided later. Advocate Babar Awan is representing the affected people of the area in the Supreme Court.

A number of men, women and children, carrying placards had also staged a protest demonstration outside the Supreme Court, condemning the “forceful takeover of over 659 kanals of land of their forefathers” by the proprietors of Bahria Town.

Selkathar is home to over 250 families, which lived in about 1,000 houses. There are government schools for boys and girls, drinking water schemes and an old graveyard. The land was inherited by them, the petitioners claimed, and more than 1,500 individuals living in Selkathar depended on the little agricultural produce from the fields on the outskirts of the rural residential place.

In their application, the residents of the area accused Malik Riaz Hussain of enticing innocent locals, through different property dealers, to get some mutations sanctioned in their favour from the Shamlat lands, the Ghairmumkin lands and the hilly lands, under the Land Acquisition Act, 1984, all of which were subsequently purchased by the proprietors of the housing scheme.

The entire land acquisition had been done in violation of the law under which government land could only be acquired for public purpose and welfare, the petition highlighted.

Soon after acquiring the land, the proprietors started bulldozing and excavating mud around the area adjacent to the Rawal Dam. If the excavation that was being done through heavy earth-moving machinery was not checked in time, the application claimed, the entire dam would have been filled due to silting and rendered inoperative.

On the one hand, the proprietors, the petition alleged, were notorious for alleged land-grabbing, while on the other they were also considered to be generous in doling out kickbacks and commissions, worth millions, for bribing government officials. As a result, the entire revenue hierarchy of the provincial government, they alleged, had become an instrument in his (Mr Hussain’s) hands.

By misinterpreting the law, the proprietors intended to deprive the petitioners of their valuable ancestral lands through coercive measures, since all officers of the relevant government department have virtually become his subordinates, the petition alleged.

They recalled that frequently the question of highhandedness of Bahria Town and its owner came under consideration before the Senate and before the National Assembly but the matter was hushed up each time, allegedly by offering precious houses or luxurious flats to these high ups, it alleged.

Earlier too, the same Bahria Town allegedly had already acquired the adjacent 2,300 kanals for the construction of the new Golf City and this construction has already started.

Furthermore, the powerful military generals and the rich Chaudhary brothers were also partners in the project, the petition alleged.