LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Wednesday ordered theSargodhacommissioner to cancel two mutations of 297-kanal land fraudulently taken back by a man from his wife, transfer it in her name and hand over the possession to her.
The woman is the granddaughter of Sir Sikandar Hayat, former prime minister of pre-PartitionPunjab.
Justice Masud Abid Naqvi directed both Lalarukh Hayat, the granddaughter of Sir Hayat, and her husband Aslam Hayat Qureshi to appear before the commissioner on Feb 23 where the latter would facilitate the process of the cancellation of the forged mutations and handing over the possession to his wife, as undertaken by him before the Supreme Court (SC).
The judge observed that any further proceedings on a civil revision petition by Qureshi would be heldonce both parties fully implement the agreement they signed before the apex court.
As per the agreement, Mr Qureshi is liable to cancel the mutations of the 297-kanal land inSargodha, which he had got transferred in his name with forgery, and transfer it back in the name of his wife.
Once the husband fulfils his commitment, Ms Hayat, as per the settlement, would record her statement before a trial court in favour of the acquittal of her husband and other suspects in a first information report (FIR) the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) had registered against them.
Justice Naqvi directed Ms Hayat to appear before the trial court on Feb 25 for her statement as per the agreement.
The ACESargodhahad registered the FIR on Nov 11, 2019 against Aslam Hayat Qureshi, his brother-in-law Munir Qureshi and officials of the revenue department, including the patwari concerned,for preparing bogus docu-ments of the property owned by Lalarukh Hayat.
A special judge of the ACE and the Lahore High Court had dismissed pre-arrest bails of Qureshi and other suspects.
The SC had advised the parties to settle the matter amicably as there was little chance of relief in the bail on merits since a Punjab Forensic ScienceAgencyexperthad declared that the signatures of Ms Hayat were forged.
The husband agreed to an outof-court-settlement to avoid going behindbars andundertooktocancel the mutations of the property and transfer the same to his wife.
The SC had allowed pre-arrest bail to the suspects as a result of the compromise reached on Dec 24, 2020.
Qureshi, however, kept delaying the implementation of the agreement and instead filed the civil revision petition before the LHC regarding the land.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Ms Hayat’s counsel Zubair Khalid told the court that Qureshi had not ful-filled his undertaking given before the SC and preferred the civil revision petition.
Justice Naqvi directed both the sides to first implement the compromise in letter and spirit before going further in the case.
Mr Qureshi had gif ted the land to his wife in 1975. However, their relationship got strained after severaldecades and he prepared fake documents with her forged signatures to take back the land. Ms Hayat found out about it when she approached the patwari for the ownership documents.
Later, the ACE, on her information, conducted an inquiry andfoundthe ofhcials of the revenue department guilty of preparing bogus documents in connivance with Qureshi and other suspects.
Finally, the ACE lodged the FIR against all the suspects for committing forgery and preparing bogus documents. The trial is pending before the special judge ofSargodha.