Government property is owned by the people of Pakistan—a fact that is often forgotten by government officials themselves. The most recent spectacular evidence of their amnesia was rendered with the embarrassing disclosure of the names of prime ministers who used the Cabinet Division’s Toshakhana as a personal treasure. A second much less talked about example is the Governor of Punjab’s decision to hand over 45,000 acres of land to the Pakistan Army.

The land would be used for “corporate farming,” according to two documents: a Government of Punjab notification on February 20, 2023 and a letter from March 10. The notification was issued under the Colonisation of Government Lands Act, 1912.

The random and secretive nature of this transaction caught the attention of the Public Interest Law Association of Pakistan (PILAP) which filed a petition to challenge this decision in the Lahore High Court through its lawyers Fahad Malik and Rafay Alam.

The court listened to the arguments of the primary counsel Advocate Fahad Malik for over fifteen minutes Wednesday morning.

According to Fahad Malik, in the notification certain conditions were given on how the land leases were to be granted under the Colonisation of Government Lands Act, 1912.

Pilap is challenging the decision to give the land to the army on four key grounds. The court asked Pilap’s lawyer to lay out the case. Advocate Malik read out the grounds and conditions given in the notification.

1. The notification was issued by the Governor of Punjab—but Section 10 of the colonisation act says that the provincial government (and not the governor) sets the conditions.

2. Even if we assume that the Government of Punjab advised the Governor to issue this notification, that is not allowed either. These conditions on how leases would be granted create land ownership (or proprietary) rights which would last several years. The Government of Punjab right now is not an elected provincial government but a caretaker set-up to last until the General Elections are held. The rules for caretaker governments (in the Elections Act) say that no caretaker government is allowed to take any decisions which are long term and would prejudice the rights of governments elected in the future.

Detail: In the Governor’s notification, the statement of conditions has a clause 9 which says that the land shall be given for 20 years and the lease can be extended 10 more years. So in the very least, any future elected government would not be able to take any decision about this land for at least 20 years. If elections are held in October, this caretaker government would end. But it would have made decisions that reach into the future. By the way, a caretaker government’s only job is to ensure fair and free elections are held.

3. All of this is being done in a “directed transaction” as recognised by the statement of conditions in the notification. A “directed transaction” is one that happens behind closed doors. No public participation is taking place. The doctrine of public trust says that all land held by a government are in trust for the people and are to be dealt with transparently.

4. The army does not have the official power (mandate) to do corporate agricultural farming (whatever that means).

The court was initially of the opinion that perhaps Pilap’s petition was premature, since nothing was on paper to indicate that land was being given. To this, Advocate Malik pointed out a letter dated March 10, ostensibly written by the director-general of special operations, to a member of the Colonies Department of Punjab, and several other secretaries. The Colonies Department manages and disposes of Punjab government land under the Colonization of Government Lands (Punjab) Act, 1912. This letter asked that the land be handed over to the army. This was being done according to a joint venture agreement apparently between the government of Punjab and the directorate.

The court admitted the petition for hearing and its note mentioned two of Pilap’s main arguments: the governor cannot issue such decisions, and a caretaker government cannot make such deals. Pilap wanted the court to suspend the notification but the court decided that the government could take no further action.