A district and sessions court in Rawalpindi Tuesday suspended the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) notice, directing Awami Muslim League (AML) Chief Sheikh Rashid Ahmed to vacate his Lal Haveli residence.

The court accepted Rashid’s plea seeking suspension of the ETPB eviction notice. The former interior minister had challenged the notice in the court through his counsel.

The court barred the ETPB from taking any action for 15 days.

A day earlier, the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) declared AML chief’s possession of Lal Haveli and six other units ‘illegal’.

The ETPB while announcing the reserved verdict had said that the petitioner could not produce any records related to the seven abandoned units including Lal Haveli.

The written judgment said that due to political influence, the case was delayed for 27 years, adding that Rashid and his brother Sheikh Siddique had not made any payment to the endowment department since 1995.