Public properties: SC orders KP govt to make manual, digital record

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court Friday directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to prepare and maintain a complete physical and electronic/digital record of all public properties.

It directed that the record must include making requisite entries, if not already made, in the revenue/land record in the name of the concerned local government, and mentioning the area, abutment, coordinates and any other particulars for their easy identification.

A two-member bench, comprising Justice Qazi Faez Isa and Justice Sardar Tariq Masood, announced the judgment in case involving Administrator Municipal Corporation, Peshawar verses Taimur Hussain Amin and others.

Authored by Justice Qazi Faez Isa, the 11-page judgment observed that public properties were being lost to nefarious elements, often in collusion with the authorities concerned, because the applicable law was not adhered to.

The judgment says, “To further and better preserve and protect public properties and to have easy access to particulars of all public properties in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is directed to prepare and maintain a complete physical and electronic/digital record of all public properties, which shall include, making requisite entries, if not already made, in the revenue/land record in the name of the concerned local government, and mention its area, abutment, coordinates and any other particulars for their easy identification. The record with regard to every local government‘s public properties must be permanently maintained by them and copies thereof kept at a centralized location by the office of the Secretary Local Government, Election and Rural Development Department Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in digital/electronic form.

”The court directed the Registrar Office to send a copy of this judgment to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary and Local Government, Election and Rural Development Department secretary who were directed to issue written instructions to every village, neighbourhood, tehsil, town, district and city district local government and directed them to ensure compliance with Sections 39 of the Act and to submit the requisite reports thereunder, with copies thereof to the said secretary and if there was any loss or waste of properties direct them to take action against “every official or servant of a local government, every member of a local council, and every person charged with administration and management of property of a local government” and to make them personally liable in terms of section 41 of the Act.