PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has issued stay order against the Deputy Commissioner’s notification to procure land for the industrial estate in Swabi after a petitioner complained that the industrial zone is being established on agriculture land.
“Gadoon Industrial estate has become a graveyard of factories and housing societies. Is the Small Industrial Development Board only looking at fertile lands to construct Industrial estates?,” the PHC chief Qaiser Rashid Khan remarked. “We cannot allow it under any circumstances. Despite being an agricultural country, even vegetables are extinct in the country.”
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The order was issued by PHC’s two-judge bench headed by Justice Qaiser Rashid Khan and Justice Fahim Wali while hearing the petition filed by Swabi residents Iftitahullah Khan and Zahirullah through Rehmanullah Shah Advocate. He informed the court that the Deputy Commissioner on the request of Small Industrial Development Board has declared more than 1000 kanals of agricultural land in front of Swabi University as barren land and imposed section-4 for industrial zone.
The counsel for the petitioners told the court that there are tube wells on this land and the area is under tobacco cultivation. The petitioner also provided photographic evidence to the court to prove that the section-4 has been imposed on fertile agriculture land. The bench was informed that agricultural land is being irrigated with Pehor Canal which is recently constructed by the government at the cost of Rs24 billion.
The petitioner informed the court that the provincial government itself had issued a declaration in 2020 under which agricultural lands cannot be used for any purpose except agriculture. The court flayed the Small Industrial Development Board (SIB) for proposing the industrial estate on fertile land. “The government should first fix Gadoon and other industrial zones then develop more such zones,” the chief justice remarked.
The court, after hearing the preliminary arguments, suspended the deputy commissioner’s order for land procurement. All proceedings under Section 4 were stayed and further hearing was adjourned.