Daily Times

In a landmark judgement, the Lahore High Court struck down the caretaker government and Pakistan army’s joint plans to transfer more than one million acres of land vested in the Province of Punjab to venture into corporate agriculture (CAF) farming for the purposes of generating profit. It is believed that the deal between the GOP and Pakistan army was conceived as a solution to the country’s glaring food insecurity problem-CAF, which implies large-scale, systematic farming to maximise production is not limited merely to the management of farms and agriculture alone but also connotes distribution, marketing, export and a variety of other responsibilities via innovative agricultural techniques. Indeed, climate change, which has wreaked serious havoc on our agriculture sector, the government argued, only reinforces the need for a program like CAF.

While the proposal may have been well-intentioned, the caretaker government might have been better off leaving the jurisdiction to an actual elected administration. The new SOCs proposed under the plan created general terms and conditions on which state land may then be granted to private and public entities for the free use of “agriculture, research and farming,” “food security,” “livestock research,” and a myriad of other purposes relating to our agricultural and livestock sectors. Under the Colonization Act, the GOP may issue SOCs on which it is willing to grant land to be tenants but only if the government has been elected into power.

The caretaker government, incidentally catapulted into office, does not have the authority to approve and notify any such instrument, especially when we consider the sheer magnitude of the suggested provisions. In fact, the caretaker government is only allowed to exercise its authority on routine, non-controversial matters. Any formulations of policy or SOCs relating to the agricultural sector, especially when cannot be reversed by a future elected government, are far from routine, preempting the exercise of authority by all governments that succeed this one. In nullifying this proposal, the High Court has successfully overruled what is evidently an open and shut case of executive overreach, unconstitutional by all reasonable measures. *