LAHORE, Nov 7: Additional District and Sessions Judge Mohammad Javed has issued notices to the Punjab government and the FC College administration in a petition through which the dispute of the college property has been raised.
The court has fixed Nov 8 (today) to hear the petition filed by the Lahore Church Council of the United Church in Pakistan which claims that it is the rightful owner of the property.
It also challenged a Punjab government notification of March 19, 2003, under which the provincial education department gave the possession of the college property to the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church of the USA and its Women General Missionary Society.
The court also issued a stay order restraining the provincial government and the two missionary bodies from taking over the possession of the property, spreading over 265 acres, till the dispute was resolved. The court has already forbidden the ejectment of the tenants while adjudicating about 50 petitions through which they challenged the notices issued by the college administration requiring them to vacate their houses.
SUIT FOR DAMAGES: Meanwhile, the Lahore Church Council has served on the Punjab government and the college administration legal notices saying that it was instituting a suit for damages to the tune of Rs40 billion for misleading the public opinion by tarnishing its integrity. The legal notices, issued by LCC secretary Mushtaq Sharjeel Bhatti, through Waheed Anwar, traced the history of the college property and claimed it was the bona fide owner of the property.
The court issued the status quo when the LCC submitted the mutation record of the property and also a Supreme Court decision of 1987 through which the apex court said that the college property belonged to the rightful owners and that the Punjab government should hand it over to them.
The LCC stated in the petition that both the missionary bodies were declared by the Punjab government as the rightful owners of the property which was not correct. It said that the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church and its Women General Missionary Society were neither registered in America nor in Pakistan and were not legal owners of the property and not entitled to work as such particularly after they were merged in the LCC in 1992-93.
The petition stated that the college was the property of the two church bodies till 1932. After that year the property was gradually transferred in the name of the LCC and the process completed in 1958. The college had been functioning under a board of directors till 1972 when the government nationalized it. In 1985, when the college was denationalized, the Punjab government took over the possession of its property. It was under an SC judgment that the property was given to the previous owners.
As for the dispute between the two church bodies, the LCC stated that the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church and its missionary society became the owners after the SC decision. But the two bodies merged themselves in the LCC and thus they lost their existence. However, the Punjab government gave the possession to two bodies of the same nomenclature which, according to the petitioner, were dummy organizations.
The petition also referred to a Memorandum of Association of 1948 through which the LCC is rightful owner of the property. It also submitted a revenue record according to which, the petition stated, all mutations were registered in the name of the LCC since 1958.