Coercive measures against hotel barred

LAHORE:The Lahore High Court on Monday restrained Cantonment Board of Lahore from taking coercive measures for recovering property tax from a luxury hotel constructed at Allama Iqbal International airport.

Pleading a petition, Advocate Taffazul Haider Rizvi told the court that Unicorn Prestige Limited, a company incorporated in United Kingdom constructed a hotel “Royal Swiss Hotel” at the airport, after being declared the highest bidder of auction conducted by Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in 2009. He said the hotel started its operations in 2019.

The counsel stated that during the construction, all NOCs with regard to amenities, height restrictions and approval of construction maps was done by the CAA being the local authority as per Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority Ordinance, 1982.

However, he said, the cantonment board suddenly started issuing notices with regard to property tax claiming that the land on which the hotel had been constructed, was under its jurisdiction. The board assessed Rs12 million as property tax issued to the hotel, he added.

Mr Rizvi argued that for last 10 years all approvals had been taken from the CAA, rather in the year 2018 the cantonment board itself wrote to Excise and Taxation Department that CAA was the authority concerned. Therefore, he said, the board should be stopped from raising any demand with regard to property tax as all taxes were being paid to CAA under the registered lease deed.

He referred to a decision by the Sindh High Court wherein an injunctive order had been issued against Karachi cantonment board on a petition filed by DHL Pakistan which had infrastructure at Jinnah International Airport Karachi.

After hearing preliminary arguments, Justice Ayesha A Malik issued notices to the cantonment board and restrained it from taking coercive measures for recovery of the property tax in question.

social media: The Lahore High Court on Monday sought a report from the federal government on newly-formulated regulations to control social media companies/platforms under Pakistan Telecommunication Reorganization Act 1996 and Prevention of Electronic Crime Act 2016.

Advocate Azhar Siddique, representing a petitioner, contended that the federal cabinet approved the legislation that required the social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and others to open their offices in Pakistan and got them registered with the authorities within three months.