PHC extends stay on allocation of land to private university

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Wednesday extended the stay order on the allocation of a public sector university land to a private university. “It is a matter of serious concern that provincial and the district governments are allocating the land of a public sector university to a private university,” Justice Qaiser Rashid observed.

He was hearing a contempt of court petition and a writ petition over the possession of a vast piece of land of the University of Peshawar’s Botanical Garden in Azakhel by the Nowshera district administration in violation of the court orders.

The bench was hearing a contempt of court petition filed against former chief minister Pervez Khattak, who is now the defence minister, and two others over the possession of a vast piece of land of the University of Peshawar’s botanical garden in Azakhel in Nowshera. The University of Peshawar’s syndicate had filed the contempt of court petition against the Nowshera district government for cancelling the lease of the land given for the Botanical Garden and Centre of Bio-Diversity and taking the possession of the land early this year.

Apart from Pervez Khattak, the two other respondents in the case are former Nowshera district nazim and Pervez Khattak’s brother Liaquat Khattak, who is now a provincial minister, and former deputy commissioner Iftikhar Alam.

Lawyers for the petitioners Waseemuddin Khattak and Abdus Samad Khan said on February 24, 2014, the then chief minister had ordered the handover of around 500 kanals of the botanical garden’s land to set up the Air University and Technical University in Nowshera. They added that on June 9, the same year, the high court declared the CM’s order illegal. The government challenged the verdict in the Supreme Court but later withdrew the petition.

The lawyers pointed out that despite losing the case, the district nazim issued an order on February 3, 2014, to cancel the lease of the land measuring 567 kanals. They added while the high court issued directives to the respondents to maintain the status quo on the issue, they took possession of the land and locked the main entrance to the Botanical Garden.

The lawyers pointed out that there were various unique species of fish and plants in the botanical garden. The petitioners claimed that in December 2003, the UoP syndicate had approved the establishment of Centre of Plant Biodiversity, which included setting up of a botanical garden in Azakhel, Nowshera.

They said the Higher Education Commission in order to support the university in its efforts to establish the centre had sanctioned a grant of Rs37.861 million. The petitioners said the Nowshera district government had leased out land measuring 689 kanals to the university to establish the centre through a lease deed issued on December 16, 2005, for a period of 99 years. They said the Nowshera district government had issued a notice to the university in December 2015 showing its intention to cancel the lease.

The lawyers said that when the university submitted a reply to the notice, the district government issued the impugned order on February 3 cancelling the lease of 567 of the total 689 kanals of land and allocated it to a private university in violation of court orders.