By IANS
Islamabad : The Pakistan Supreme Court has let off the hook some 500 individuals including President Pervez Musharraf and former prime minister Shaukat Aziz who had been accused of misusing farmland for constructing country villas.
“After six months of unstoppable tension, these 499 owners of big farm houses, worth over Rs.75 billion, have finally something to cheer about because they have been cleared of misusing farmlands for their residences,” The News reported Thursday.
The report was headlined “Rich, powerful farm owners get relief from SC”.
At issue was the area earmarked in the Chak Shahzad neighbourhood on the capital’s outskirts as farmland. The Supreme Court had initiated proceedings last year to find out how 499 members of Pakistan’s elite had purchased this land at ridiculously low rates from the original owners to construct sprawling country villas.
According to Attorney General Malik Qayyum, the Supreme Court had now closed the proceedings “as the issue does not relate to the court”.
The court observed that the issue did not warrant any intervention on its part, as there were other institutions like the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to deal with this.
Qayyum said the court had also observed that the CDA had allotted the land in hilly areas where the availability of water was a big problem.
A Supreme Court bench headed by deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry had last year begun proceedings on its own on the issue. It had also questioned the CDA on permitting country villas to be constructed on land that was meant for farming.
During the court proceedings before the emergency was declared Nov 3, it had emerged that the 499 powerful owners had a total of 2,500 acres of prime land worth about Rs.75 billion.
The court proceedings, “according to many observers, was one of the causes of the removal from office of the ex-chief justice as his action had offended these top guns sitting in the Shaukat Aziz government”, The News said.