The Punjab interim government lacks a constitutional mandate to transfer up to 1 million acres of state land to the Pakistan Army for corporate agriculture farming, rules the Lahore High Court. In a 134-page judgment, released on Wednesday, the single-judge bench found that neither did the caretaker government of Punjab have the constitutional mandate to allot land for corporate farming, nor did the armed forces of Pakistan have the constitutional and legal mandate to indulge in corporate farming.
In the verdict, Justice Abid Hussain Chattha wrote that any land allotted to the military for corporate farming be returned to the Punjab government, and that necessary steps be taken to sensitise each member of the armed forces regarding its constitutional and legal mandate and the consequences of possible violations.
