K-P land scam: Peshawar high court petitioned to cancel lease

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti had cancelled the allotment of 170 acres of land worth Rs5 billion following news of the scam. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD:?A legal battle has started between the federal and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government in the scam involving the lease of 170 acres of land which was originally marked to the Pakistan Oilseed Development Board (PODB).

The Peshawar High Court is taking up a petition filed by the PODB, a department of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, on Wednesday (today), requesting the cancellation of the allotment in the name of Javed Iqbal of Rawalpindi. The court has further been petitioned to direct the K-P government to hand over the land back to the PODB.

The agriculture ministry moved the Peshawar High Court to reclaim ownership of its olive research station established in 1998 on 170 acres with the help of technology and support from Turkey and Italy.

PODB has hired advocate Mohammad Asif to fight the case. The K-P government had already cancelled the land allotment in the name of Javed Iqbal after the scam was published in The Express Tribune last week. However, K-P Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain has said that the multi-billion-rupee olive research station will be auctioned.

The developed olive research farm was secretly leased out by the K-P government on December 3, to one Javed Iqbal, said to be a front man of a top Awami National Party leader, in the name of a bogus construction company of Rawalpindi for twenty years. Police was used to forcibly get the land vacated.

The National Accountability Bureau has already launched an investigation into the Rs5 billion land scam.

The Rawalpindi address given in the lease documents by Javed Iqbal turned out to be fake which further deepened the mystery as to who was actually behind this crime.

In its petition, the PODB has informed the court that it was given the land by Auqaf on lease in 1998.

The land at the time of possession was barren and rain-fed. PODB spent millions of rupees to develop it.

The petition pleaded that the land was given to the PODB with the clear understanding that its lease would be extended.

PODB has now asked the court to direct Auqaf department to extend its lease.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 22^nd, 2010.

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Saving face: K-P reverses dubious land lease

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti cancelled the allotment of 170 acres of land worth Rs5 billion on Wednesday. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD:?In a dramatic move, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti cancelled the allotment of 170 acres of land worth Rs5 billion on Wednesday, after The Express Tribune broke the news of the well-documented scam.

In a desperate bid to pre-empt any legal action from the Supreme Court of Pakistan against those top guns who were direct beneficiaries of the land lease, the chief executive of the province beat a hasty retreat.

The Canola Research Station of the Pakistan Oilseed Development Board (PODB) established on 400 kanals of government land in Mardan worth Rs1.6 billion was proposed to be allotted to chief executive officer PALBTIZ, Sarhad Chamber of Commerce, Peshawar.

Inside sources within the provincial government claimed the decision to cancel land allotment was taken after warnings by “sane elements” within the power corridors. If the allotment of 170 acres of land to a front man (Javed Iqbal of Rawalpindi) of an ANP leader was not cancelled, there was a strong possibility that Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry might take a suo motu notice of the scam, the provincial government was advised.

It was feared that the Supreme Court’s action might land none other than the chief executive of the province, Hoti, in big trouble because he had approved the illegal allotment of a palm olive research station’s 170 acres of developed land to one of his party loyalists at throwaway prices, breaking all rules of transparency.

The announcement to cancel questionable land allotment ?was made by the information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain during a televised interview with Express TV. He initially denied the story run by The Express Tribune, calling it a “pack of lies”. But, in the same breath, the information minister claimed that for the sake of “transparency”, the provincial government had decided to cancel allotment of land to an unknown individual and hold a public auction of the property to fetch more money.

However, the minister did not respond to the question as to why a public auction was not held in the past before the allotment was made. Despite persistent attempts, the minister did not disclose the identity of Javed Iabal who was initially allotted the land for a period of five years.

The Express Tribune had reported that chief minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti had quietly allotted public land worth Rs5 billion to a front man of his party leader in Mardan after forcibly taking the possession from the Pakistan Oilseed Development Board with the help of local police.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2010.

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