Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: A three-member Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar will take up today (Monday) a pending suo-motu case pertaining to proposed conversion of 1,250 acres of National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) land into a housing society.

The bench will also hear two other suo-motu cases involving human rights. These cases pertain to the sale and implantation of substandard cardiac stents and appointment of managing director of PTV.

On September 2, 2015, the then CJP Jawwad S. Khawaja had taken suo motu notice of the issue of conversion of NARC land into a housing society.

The notice was taken on the application of President Pakistan Agricultural Research Council Scientists Association (PARCSA) Muhammad Altaf Sher and other officers and employees of Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC).

Attorney General for Pakistan, Secretary Cabinet Division, Chairman Capital Development Authority (CDA), Chairman Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (PARC), Director-General, NARC, and President PARCSA will appear in the court today.

The CDA had moved a summary for the approval of the prime minister to convert 1,250 acres of NARC land in Islamabad into a housing scheme.

The Supreme Court had granted stay against converting the land of NARC into a housing society. Later the stay was extended. CDA wanted to transform the NARC’s prime land into a housing society.

The CDA had moved a summary for approval of the prime minister to develop 6,000 plots on NARC land to earn Rs100 billion in a year apart from Rs 30-50 billion from auction of commercial plots.

Advocate Naib Gardezi, representing the federal government, had informed the court that federal minister for National Food Security, Sikandar Bosan, wrote a letter to then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif requesting him to stop implementation of the plan for constructing a housing society on the NARC land. “The summary is under consideration but is unlikely to be approved in the next 10 days,” he had stated.

The bench then stayed the proposed conversion noting that NARC was a national asset and it should be saved from any irreparable damages. The NARC land houses experimental fields, laboratories, green houses, a gene bank, a library, a documentation centre, an auditorium, machinery and lab equipment repair workshops.

The bench further said that the national assets were for the people of Pakistan and not for the government, adding that the government could not sell them without the permission of the people. NARC with the assistance of international organizations is conducting research on various crops.

The CDA counsel had apprised the court that in 2005 the land was allotted on lease, which ended in 2013. The then chief justice had noted that people did not get flour from NARC, however, a privileged section of society wanted a housing society on the state land.

Published in Daily Times, February 26^th 2018.