Court irked by claims over ETPB land

LAHORE: Lahore High Court Chief Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan was irked Friday after it was transpired that the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) was a claimant of a piece of land of the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB), illegally occupied by the police.

“Now I understand as to why the Police Department had been reluctant to vacate that piece of land,” the chief justice said, as a provincial government application revealed litigation pending before a civil court on a suit of the DHA against the Elite Police Training School (EPTS).

The court was informed that a civil court had issued a stay order in favour of the DHA and that was why the possession of the land could not be given to the ETPB.

Expressing concern over the involvement of the DHA in the matter, the LHC CJ noted that the housing authority also faced a scam of plots allocated for the families of the martyrs. “It seems the police want to usurp the land in connivance with the DHA,” the chief justice remarked and added that no one was above the law.