SC restrains PM from approving housing colony on NARC land

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday stopped Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from implementing the summary on a proposed residential colony on the land of the National Agriculture Research Council (NARC) and adjourned the hearing till the 16th of this month.
The three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice Jawwad S Khawaja, heard the petition filed by the employees of NARC.
The CJ, during the hearing, remarked that this land was purchased with the money of the common people. It was not the personal property of anyone, adding that if anybody needed land to build palaces he should purchase the land and should not try to grab state-owned land.
The petitioner, Muhammad Altaf, in his petition informed the court that the proposed land, measuring 1,300 kanals, was acquired on lease from the CDA in 1977 to establish a research centre on agricultural products. The duration of the lease had ended in 2005, but the research process was going on with the association of foreign experts.
The petitioner further said that if the research process on agricultural products was stopped, it would badly affect the development of the agriculture sector.
The counsel for the CDA informed the court that the duration of lease of land given to the NARC had ended. Now the CDA had the authority to utilise this land as per its choice.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Cabinet Division had sent the summary to the PM to make a residential colony on the land of NARC. A parliamentarian of the ruling PML-N, Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, was allegedly supporting to make a residential colony on this land while the federal food minister had opposed this project.