Kohinoor diamond given under treaty, court told

LAHORE

The Pakistan government told the Lahore High Court on Tuesday that it should not try to bring priceless Kohinoor diamond back from Britain as it had been handed over to East India Company under a treaty.

Government’s lawyer informed the court  that the diamond was handed over to East India Company under a treaty reached between the then Punjab ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh and British East Indian Company. He said as diamond was given through a treaty and the government could not demand its return.

Justice Muhammad Khalid Mehmood directed the Punjab government to submit the copy of `the treaty of Lahore 1849’ under which the Kohinoor diamond was handed over to East Indian Company.

The judge hearing the petition of Barrister Syed Javed Iqbal Jaffree ordered production of the treaty copy till May 2.

The petitioner said that such a treaty could be reached between the two governments and in this case, the East India Company was not sovereign and this treaty had no value. He said that this diamond was forcibly taken from here and it should be brought back.

Earlier the petitioner had submitted that the Kohinoor was once the largest cut diamond in the world was presented to Queen Victoria during the British Raj. He alleged that British rulers during occupation of the sub-continent seized Kohinoor weighing 105 carats and worth billions of rupees from Daleep Singh, grandson of Maharaja Ranjeet Singh and took it to  the United Kingdom.

He said that this diamond was in the crown worn by the Queen Mother at the coronation of her husband King George VI in 1937 and again at Queen Elizabeth-II coronation in 1953. He said that since then this diamond was  in British possession whereas the Queen Elizabeth had no right to it.

He said that the snatched diamond was cultural heritage of Punjab province and its citizens owned it in fact. He requested the court to direct the federal government to bring the diamond back to Pakistan.

PIDA: The Lahore High Court on Tuesday directed the Punjab government to regularise 150 contractual employees of Punjab Irrigation and Drainage Authority (PIDA). Justice Muhammad Khalid Mehmood Khan of the Lahore High Court announced this judgement in open court which he had reserved on previous date of hearing after hearing complete arguments on different petitions filed by Sayed Nasim Abass Zaidi and other contract employees of PIDA. During the hearing, Advocate Makhdoom Tipu Salman, the counsel for the petitioners, had argued that the case of their regularisation had been pending since 2012. He said the petitioners were being dismissed from services to recruit new ones. He said it was against the basic rights of the petitioners to not to regularise them.