ISLAMABAD: The Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) on Wednesday ruled that once land is acquired for a specified object, it cannot ordinarily be repurposed at the whims of beneficiary or its successor-in-interest.
A two-member FCC bench, comprising Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan and Justice Ali Baqar Najafi, issued the judgment in a land acquisition case titled M/S Adil International (Pvt) Ltd versus the Secretary, Industries, Commerce & Technical Education Department, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and others.
The petitioner, M/S Adil International (Pvt) Ltd, had filed an appeal in the FCC against the judgment passed by the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on September 11, 2024. The court, after hearing the parties, dismissed the appeal and upheld the PHC verdict, holding that the judgment was free from any illegality, irregularity, or jurisdictional infirmity warranting interference by it. The court held that all pending miscellaneous applications, if any, stand disposed of in the same terms.
“Although we have no hesitation to observe that the acquisition of land under the Act being an exercise of the sovereign power of eminent domain, the deprivation of private property can only be justified on the touchstone of public purpose,” says the 17-page judgment authored by FCC Chief Justice Aminuddin Khan. The court held that once land is acquired for a specified object, the same cannot ordinarily be diverted to another purpose at the whims of beneficiary or its successor-in-interest. “This is the most constitutionally serious scenario and admits of no justification under the legal framework,” it held. The petitioner purchased the assets of Adamjee Papers & Board Mills through a court-supervised auction in 2000, free from all encumbrances. After obtaining court orders, it secured an NOC, developed a housing scheme, sold plots and construction began. Subsequently, government restricted the use and transfer of the land, resulting in refusal to register sale deeds. The petitioner challenged these actions through W P No 4361-P/2021, but the PHC dismissed the petition on September 11, 2024. Aggrieved by the judgment, the petitioner filed the present Petition for Leave to Appeal. According to the FCC judgment, if the State acquires land for, say, a public hospital and subsequently transfers or leases it to a private developer or for commercial purpose, the constitutional foundation of the original acquisition is destroyed retroactively. “This amounts to an indirect expropriation in favour of private interests — a result that Article 24 of the Constitution categorically prohibits,” the judgment said. The court held that since the land in question was acquired specifically for the establishment of Paper and Board Mills, the petitioner cannot claim, as a vested, absolute or indefeasible right, its conversion into a housing scheme.
