Staff Reporter
Vice Chairperson Punjab Overseas Pakistani Commission (OPC) Chaudhry Waseem Akhter has said that OPC Amendment Act 2019 was in the offing which would serve overseas Pakistanis better in resolution of civil and criminal cases.
In an interview, he said the amended OPC Act 2019 would be passed in the Punjab Assembly this year and the commission would be authorized to summon the respondents and seal the properties.
“Separate OPC courts, headed by a senior civil judge, would be established with time-limit fixed to six months in all overseas Pakistanis cases, while a case would be decided one-sided if a lawyer did not appear for 15 days before the court under the
Amendment Act OPC 2019,” he added.
To a question, OPC Vice Chairperson said 90 percent of the registered cases with the OPC pertained to illegal occupation of the properties and lands, adding in most cases it was a tenant who had occupied a rental property or siblings who usurped an ancestral land or a forger who started litigation through some fake stamp-paper due to an absent overseas landlord.
Waseem Akhter said the breakthrough legislation would grant possession of the controversial property to the title-holder,adding the possession of the litigant property would be handed to the title-holder till the case was decided instead of leaving it in possession of the litigants for years.
He, further elaborating on it, said in most of the cases the occupants filed suits in the courts and had, deprived the real owners (title-holders) of their properties for decades, adding in such cases majority of the title-holders were overseas Pakistanis.
