RAWALPINDI, April 28: The division bench of the Lahore High Court on Monday ordered National Accountability Bureau to decide on a patwari case within eight weeks.

Hearing a bail petition of a Patwari who had been arrested by NAB for allegedly transferring government land to a private person Justice Maulvi Anwarul Haq observed that the powers enjoyed by the Patwari were not hidden and referred to the remarks Lord Caning made about patwari.

“Had You appointed me as a Patwari in a village in central Punjab instead of appointing me governor general to India, I would have enjoyed more,” Lord Canning wrote to Queen Victoria after serving as governor general in India.

The lawyer of arrested patwari Rab Nawaz pleaded before the division bench (DB) comprising Justice Maulvi Anwarul Haq and Justice Ali Akbar Qureshi that no proof of taking bribery against his client had been forwarded and the sanctioning authorities such as tehsildar and naib tehsildar had not been made accused in the case.

Mehmood Khan Advocate representing NAB said that the Patwari on the basis of a court decision in 1959 transferred the government land in Ganjmandi area to Taj Din. He told the court that according to his national identity card number, Taj Din was born in 1953 and how on the earth he could become a party in a case decided in 1959.

When Justice Haq saw the identity card he made the remarks about patwari.

Sensing the mood of the court, the attorney of the Patwari withdrew his bale application and the bench directed an accountability court, where the Patwari is being tried, to decide on the case in eight weeks.

Meanwhile in another case the divisional bench directed NAB authorities not to harass a man who moved the LHC seeking protection from the harassment of NAB.

Raja Mumtaz Hussain moved the court saying he sold some 35 kanal land in Kalyal area to Mohammad Afzal in 2006 under a signed agreement. Later Afzal paid Rs7 million but did not pay remaining Rs14.6 million as per the agreement. He said while a civil case about the execution of the agreement was pending with a civil judge in Rawalpindi, Afzal had given an application to NAB that he had defrauded him.

He alleged in his application that the NAB officials had been harassing him as the case did not fall under the legal jurisdiction of the NAB.

Nobody represented the NAB in the LHC.