Tuesday   last, Pakistan’s first mega riverfront property development project, named Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project (RRUDP), suffered a deadly blow when the Lahore High Court (LHC) declared it illegal.

The project, which entails that an entire city be built along the Ravi River, on more than 100,000 acres in the north of Lahore, has been surrounded by controversies and rumours of inefficiency, laxity and financial mismanagement since its inception. Putting its future in limbo, the LHC declared several provisions of the Ravi Urban Development Authority (RUDA) Act, 2020, unconstitutional.

In his verdict, which had been reserved on December 21, Justice Shahid Karim stated that the RUDA had failed to come up with a master plan in accordance with the law. He pointed out that any development scheme carried out without a master plan was a violation of the constitution.

The court also declared Section 4 of the Ravi Urban Development Authority (amendment) Ordinance 2021 unlawful and unconstitutional. It ruled that the section contradicts Article 144 of the constitution.

In the end, the court ordered the RUDA to repay Rs 5 billion it owed to the Punjab government for the project, within two months.

The court was ruling on petitions filed by Advocates Sheraz Zaka, Ahmad Rafay Alam and others on behalf of the farmers, challenging the mode and manner in which the land acquisition proceedings had been undertaken by the Authority. The petitioners had questioned the legality of forcible acquisition of land for commercial purposes under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. The petitioners’ counsel contended that the project would deprive the farmers of their precious land and that such deprivation was an infringement on fundamental rights.

They also raised the issue of the legality of the project’s environmental impact assessment, which had allegedly been prepared by an unregistered consultant.

The decision has been widely hailed, especially by those whose lives would have been directly impacted by the project. The court’s ruling has saved the precious agricultural land along the Ravi, they say. “We are extremely grateful to the court for giving us a patient listening and admitting our stance as based on facts,” commented Mian Mustafa Rashid, chairman of the Kisan Action Committee.

The court was ruling on the petitions filed by Advocates Sheraz Zaka, Ahmad Rafay Alam and others on behalf of the farmers,
challenging the mode and manner in which the land acquisition proceedings had been  undertaken by the Authority. The petitioners had questioned the legality of forcible  , acquisition of land for commercial purposes under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894.

He alleged that the RUDA “wanted to usurp thousands of acres of agricultural land at a measly rate of Rs 1,475 per marla.”

Amjad Abbas, whose five-acre ancestral land in Shahdara falls in the domain of the project, said: “The poor are being forced to sell their properties at throwaway prices.

This is being done to promote the interests of land mafias.”

The authorities, on the other hand, are loath to accept the court’s verdict. Imran Amin, the RUDA CEO, has said that the ruling could jeopardise foreign investments in Pakistan. He has also said that development work on the $9 billion project will go on as scheduled.

He says the judgment will be challenged before the apex court.

Amin says the court has only objected to two sections of the amended Act that relate to the powers vested in the RUDA to act as local government and acquire land. Therefore, he says, the operations could continue.

It is pertinent to mention here that most of the requisite land has yet to be acquired. So far, the Authority has managed to acquire only 5,000 acres of land, most of which has been government land. The Authority has been famously hiring personnel on hefty salaries, and seeking expressions of interest from developers. This may not be outright illegal but the allegations calls into question the efficacy and transparency of the project.

The RUDA has also been unable to complete even a single scheme. The sorry state of affairs can be gauged from the fact that it failed to make any significant progress on building smart forests planned with the help of latest technologies.

It had signed a memorandum of understanding with Huawei Pakistan to revive the dying Ravi River and turn the place into a Safe/ Smart Green City. Sources say Huawei has abandoned the project.

Kashif Qureshi, a spokesperson for the RUDA, says that the Authority has launched a forestation campaign to plant a million trees in order to achieve the objective of an environmentally sustainable model city, as envisioned by Prime Minister Imran Khan who earlier inaugurated Pakistan’s first reserve forest in Lahore as part of his billion-tree tsunami programme. The Rakh Jhok Reserve Forest is to be a model forest planted over 3,071 acres.

The writer is a senior journalist and can be reached at ahsanzia155@gmail.com