A cash bonanza for land mafia

1,397 cases of land disputes filed with district court in 3 months

ISLAMABAD: With the launch of new housing societies and commercial areas in capital, the land mafia is flexing its muscles to make money that is resulting in increase in land disputes and people are approaching district courts, which have received 1,379 cases in last three months from July- September 2011.

Meanwhile, the persons involved in these cases are hopeless, and they think that the crop of court will not yield fruit as it take decades to resolve land disputes.

According to record of district court, there are 1,379 cases registered in district court during last three months. Besides 2,308 cases were registered during year 2010-June-2011, in which mostly cases were registered against the private housing societies in which the landowner had sold one plot to three or four persons separately.

Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Yaar Muhammad Gondal court received 307 cases of land dispute and all of them were registered during last three month, in which 165 cases were reported about land dispute from Bhara Kahu, 113 from Alipur Farash and 29 from the area of Tarnool.

The court of ASJ Kamran Bashrat Mufti received 256 applications of land disputes and all of them were registered during July-September 2011, in which 124 land dispute cases were from Alipur Farash, 87 cases from Bahar Kahu and 45 cases from Sihala.

The court of ASJ Wajaht Hussain received 226 applications of land dispute that 118 land disputes were reported from the area of Alipur Farash, 102 from Bahar Kahu and six cases of land dispute from the area of Sihala.

Court of Senior Civil Judge Mahmood Haroon received 209 applications of land dispute in last three months in which, 156 cases were from the rural areas of capital and 53 cases from urban areas.

Civil Judge Shabana Hameed Mughal received 187 applications of land dispute, which 136 were registered from rural areas and 51 from urban areas of capital.

Civil Judge Usman Ali Awan court received 194 applications of land dispute in which 129 from rural areas and 65 from urban areas of capital.

It is also observed that majority of the disputes are on the rise in the areas of city that are less developing as Satellite Town. Many of the cases have been reported from localities like Alipur Farash, Phulgaran, Bhara Kahu, Sihala and those falling in the northern and western parts of capital.

According to law, sale of real estate in Pakistan normally takes place through a title document known as a Sale Deed, except in certain cases e.g. purchase of real estate in Defence Housing Authority (DHA) or in a housing society where sale is not executed for transfer of title in real estate and an allotment or transfer letter from the authority or the society is deemed to be the title document. Some people, before execution of the sale deed, may opt to execute an agreement to sell.