CJ directs to transfers Chitral land settlement case to principal bench

Humayun Khan

PESHAWAR: The single bench comprising of Chief Justice Peshawar High Court, Justice Qaisar Rashid has ordered the transfer of Chitral land settlement case from Dar-ul-Qaza Swat to the principal seat of the Peshawar High Court, taking notice of grave irregularities committed during the settlement process.

The petitioners, all being affected residents of the district of Upper and Lower Chitral.

The Barrister counsel for petitioner Barrister Mulk plead that 97% of the total land mass of the districts of Chitral had been entered in the name of the Provincial Government which was unfathomable, and contrary to the command of Article 172 (1) of Pakistan’s Constitution. He contended that it appeared that land expropriation rather than land settlement was being carried out in Chitral.

Chief Justice PHC Justice Qaisar Rashid took a long while to read the grounds agitated in the transfer application and concluded saying he acceded to the application as the same was just and reasonable.

As regarding the interim relief of preventing the handing over of revenue records by the settlement office in Chitral to revenue authorities, the Chief Justice said that the same would be placed before a divisional bench.

The mode and manner in which land settlement has been carried out in the districts of Upper and Lower Chitral is a bone of contention between the residents of the districts and the Government. Recently even a law and order situation was arisen near Buni in Chitral which had to be diffused through the intervention of the Chitral Scouts.