ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court’s hearing on Friday of a case relating to large-scale encroachment on Botanical Garden and unplanned construction in the Banigala area led to an interesting dispute when it emerged that the Punjab government, and not the Capital Development Authority (CDA), is the owner of the area, but the relevant record to establish the claim is missing.

A three-judge SC bench headed by Justice Umar Ata Bandial, however, asked the Punjab government to complete the relevant record and furnish it before the court and summoned senior officers of the CDA, Ministry of Climate Change and provincial forest department.

The Supreme Court had taken a suo motu notice of the illegal construction on a letter written by then PTI chief and now Prime Minister Imran Khan inviting the court’s attention to the large-scale encroachment on Botanical Garden, uncheck and unplanned construction in the Banigala area, massive denuding because of large-scale tree felling and pollution in Rawal Lake due to sewage water.

Additional Advocate General (AAG) for Punjab Qasim Ali Nawaz Chowhan informed the court that so far he could lay his hands on the records from the year 1879 to 1963, but was trying his level best to complete the up-to-date record.

Apex court directs provincial government to complete and furnish relevant record

Likewise, the CDA’s legal adviser told the court that the relevant record of the area was also not available with the authority.

The AAG said that in 1966 the then Punjab governor as well as the agriculture department had leased out 1,362 acres of land to the CDA that now consisted of the land around Banigala. The land was leased out at a nominal price of Rs1 per acre. Out of 1,362 acres, 721 acres comprise Reserved Forest Land or the Botanical Darden and 641 acres consist of Rakh Banigala. These areas span over Phul Garan, Moza Utal, Mohra Noor and Banigala.

The lease was granted by the Punjab government with an understanding that the forest area, which mainly consists of scrub forest, will remain untouched, maintained and will never be sublet to any other department or agency, etc.

The lease period expired in 1991, but the CDA had not paid a single penny to the Punjab government during the entire period of lease, regretted the AAG, adding that a wide-scale construction could be seen in the entire area which should have been kept intact as the reserved forest area.

Earlier, he recalled, the apex court had ordered demarcation of the area surrounding Banigala, but it could not be materialised in view of the missing documents. During one of the previous hearings, the CDA had informed the court about its plans to demarcate 721 acres of the Botanical Garden by constructing a wall around it and removing encroachment.

Justice Bandial, however, recalled that the order to demarcate the land had been given by the apex court way back in 2017.

Also in April 2018, the CDA had informed the apex court that it had launched an amnesty scheme to regularise those unchecked and unplanned constructions in the Banigala area which were build until March 30, 2018, and any construction after the deadline would be raised to the ground.

The 300-kanal palatial Banigala Estate owned by Prime Minister Khan also falls within the area which had to be regularised. So far the amnesty scheme has not been materialised.

In his letter, Imran Khan as PTI chief had highlighted continuous transgression of the law in the Banigala area, negative impact on the environment and health and welfare of future generations. He had requested the court to direct the CDA to act against the encroachers, land mafias and anarchic builders who were together turning Banigala into a concrete jungle.

“Unplanned and unregulated plazas were cropping up across Banigala with no sewerage and waste disposal systems in place or being planned,” the letter had deplored, adding that if left unchecked, all the refuse from these buildings would find its way into Rawal Lake, which stored drinking water for the inhabitants of Rawalpindi. “But the CDA chose to ignore all these construction transgressions, creating another source for environmental pollution that already besets us in the form of plastic bags and garbage lining of our roads and city streets,” Mr Khan had said in his letter.

Published in Dawn, October 3rd, 2020