By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: A Lahore court on Wednesday canceled a decision by Punjab’s interim government to lease 45,000 acres of land in three districts to the army for 20 years, saying it exceeded the authority of both parties.
The army had sought the land in Bhakkar, Khushab, and Sahiwal for corporate agriculture farming (CAF) under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.
“The caretaker government lacks a constitutional and legal mandate to take any decision regarding the CAF initiative and policy in any manner whatsoever,” Justice Abid Hussain Chattha said in his verdict on four petitions challenging the deal.
The petitions were filed by the Public Interest Law Association of Pakistan (PILAP), a not-for-profit legal organisation, and others.
The Punjab government had agreed to lease 45,267 acres of land to the army with an option to extend it for another 10 years.
The court said the decision was beyond the scope and mandate of the caretaker government, which was supposed to hold office only until a newly elected government took charge after general elections in November 2023.
“It was a blatant attempt to encroach upon the domain of future elected governments,” the judge said.
He also questioned the army’s claim that it had experience in developing barren land and said it was “merely a bald claim, coupled with a thrust for its self-acclaimed help and cooperation for CAF initiative”.
The judge declared all subsequent notifications and transfers of land in favour of the army as unlawful and null and void.
The administration of military lands and cantonments is under the control of the defence ministry. The court noted that the army had directly approached the Punjab government for land before the deal was approved by the caretaker cabinet.
“It was undue haste, abhorrent and horrendous fashion with which the impugned transaction regarding CAF initiative, involving huge quantum of public immovable property was approved,” the judge said.
A report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) four years ago said Pakistan’s military establishment was the country’s largest conglomerate of business entities.
The report said the military was the biggest urban real estate developer and manager in Pakistan, with a wide range of involvement in public projects construction.
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