PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has impleaded the provincial agriculture secretary and the director-general of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Environmental Protection Agency as respondents in a petition against the acquisition of `fertile` land in Swabi district for setting up a small industrial estate.A bench consisting of Justice Abdul Shakoor and Justice Syed Arshad Ali directed the new respondents to appoint officers with expertise in developing reports about the viability of the land in question to produce food grains for the people of the area and the province as well as the environmental impact of the establishment of a small industrial estate in the area.

It ordered the filing of those before the next hearing, whose schedule will be announced later.

Last year, the court had suspended a notification of Swabi`s deputy commissioner to acquire land for the project.

It declared that the interim relief granted to the petitioners would continue.The petition was filed by Swabi residents Zahirullah and Iftitahullah Khan against the imposition of Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act in the area by the DC in his capacity as the land acquisition collector.

Lawyer Rahmanullah Shah appeared for the petitioner, whereas Waseemuddin Khattak and assistant advocate-general Shahnaz Tariq represented the Small Industrial Development Board (SIDB) and the provincial government, respectively.

The petitioners claimed that the land being acquired by the district administration for setting up an industrial zone in Swabi district was mostly agricultural and not barren.

They added that the DC had imposedSection 4 on fertile agricultural land by declaring it barren, an act, which would badly affect agricultural activities in the district.

The court had appointed a local commission on Oct 6, 2022, to determine the status of the land in question. The commission also submitted a report to the court.

The bench observed that the examination of the report showed that for just and proper disposal of the matter, it should have the opinion of the agriculture department regarding the shortage of the food grains in the province and potential of the land in question as a contributor for the needs of the people of the area as provider of food-grains and opinion of the EPA regarding environmental impact of the establishment of the small industrial estate in the area.

Advocate Rahmanullah contended that on the requisition of SIDB, the Swabi deputy commissioner had issued the impugned notification imposing Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act for acquiring over 1,000 kanals of agricultural land the industrial estate.

He claimed that the land onwhich Section 4 was imposed was located near the Swabi University and was agricultural land irrigated through the Pehur High Level Canal.

The lawyer said around Rs24 billion was spent on the construction of that canal for irrigate the barrenland for farming.

He said the provincial government issued an order in 2020 against the use of agricultural land for any other purpose.The counsel claimed that the SIDB had been acting at the behest of an influential politician of the area for setting up an industrial zone.

He said several tubewells were sunk on that land with farmers growing tobacco on it.