Parliamentary panel to hold hearing on Bahawalpur princess’ public petition

ISLAMABAD: A National Assembly panel will take up on Thursday a public petition filed by Princess Khaliquah Begum Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi and daughter of the late Amir of Bahawalpur, regarding the failure of the federal government to implement a Supreme Court order handed down in October, 2O18

A five-judge bench had dismissed the Punjab government’s plea in the 52-year old litigation over the property of the late Amir Nawab Sadiq Abbasi.

At the time of Partition, the Amir had decided that the Bahawalpur State would accede to Pakistan and executed an instrument of succession in pursuance of which a Bahawalpur Merger Agreement, dated Dec 17, 1954, was executed with the Pakistan government.

After the death of the Amir in 1966, a dispute developed between his legal heirs and the government regarding the inheritance, the applicability of Shariat Law to the case and martial law regulation (MLR) 64. The case was finally decided by the Supreme Court in 1982.

In the decision, the top court had directed the government to determine the inheritance rights of the legal heirs and proceed under the provisions of the Land Reforms Procedures, 1959. However, the government failed to implement the judgment and instead the Punjab land commissioner, in exercise of suo motu powers, assumed the land. This gave rise to further litigation. The legal heirs filed a writ petition before the Lahore High Court (LHC), which decided that the suo motu proceedings initiated by the commissioner were illegal and the apex court order must be implemented in letter and spirit.

However, the Punjab government and the provincial land commissioner filed an appeal against this order before the Supreme Court.

The heirs’ lawyer argued that the Supreme Court order had to be implemented in letter and spirit, which meant that the government must distribute the land among the legal heirs of the late Amir and then apply the proceedings of MLR 64 in case of any excess land.

The federal government argued that it had already divided the land among the inheritors but had not distributed it because of the suo motu proceedings of the Punjab land commissioner.

The apex court subsequently noted that there was no illegality in the LHC order and that the earlier judgment of the Supreme Court had to be implemented. As a result, the legal heirs would now be able to obtain their lawful rights after many years of litigation.

In view of the Supreme Court order, the federal government had distributed the mutated and possessed private property, comprising urban and agriculture land and measuring 4,455 acres according to the 2005 notification, among the 23 legal heirs of the late Amir.