LAHORE, Nov 14: The Lahore High Court sought on Wednesday the provincial governor’s comments on a writ petition alleging that he had accepted a Board of Revenue representation against an individual about a 1962 sale of state land without hearing him.

The petitioners, sons of the original purchaser of a few acres of state land in the district of Faisalabad in 1962, said they were mistakenly sold a portion of private property. They applied for correction and the application was accepted by the divisional commissioner. However, the Board of Revenue, ‘which had allowed an identical plea in another case,’ did not agree and the petitioners finally approached the provincial ombudsman in 1997. The ombudsman directed the BoR secretary for colonies on December 16, 1997, to sympathetically consider the petitioners’ case and decide it within a month.

The BoR first moved the ombudsman for review of his order and when the plea was rejected, filed a representation with the governor, who accepted it. The petitioners challenged the governor’s order, saying that it was issued without hearing them. The disposal of a representation on the basis of a summary prepared by the very department or agency against whom an order has been made makes a mockery of the remedy provided by the office of ombudsman, who is an experienced former member of the superior judiciary.

Referring to a Supreme Court judgment, the petitioners said through advocate Abdur Rahman Madani that the governor, while performing his functions under the Ombudsman Act of 1997, ‘acts in a quasi-judicial and not in an administrative capacity, which is totally distinguishable from administrative actions.’