Lahore High Court (LHC) Justice Shahid Karim Sunday stressed the need for a halt to the acquisition of agricultural land to build housing societies. He was addressing a session on ‘Climate Change and Floods in Pakistan’ on the last day of the two-day Asma Jahangir Conference here at a hotel.
He said that he had ordered to stop the acquisition of agricultural land in the Ravi Urban Development Authority (RUDA) case. He informed the session that he had also revoked the old colonial law of acquiring agricultural land in the name of building infrastructure. “For God’s sake! stop acquiring agricultural land. Building housing societies on agricultural land should be stopped now,” he stressed.
“In the RUDA judgment, we had declared that the national security is now the food security. The new name of national security is now food security,” he pointed out. Justice Shahid also said that he had heard a petition on the improvement of environmental pollution in 2018. “The petition on the environmental pollution has been pending in the court,” he added.
The LHC judge also pointed out that the concept of secure life was in the Constitution, and he added that many judgements of the court were nothing but good paintings. “We need to do more. Our constitution is a social link between the people and the state. Article 9 of the Constitution guarantees life,” he emphasised.
The judge also claimed that it had been decided to do something practically then. “A notice was taken on the wastage of water in mosques, and this water is now conserved,” he said.
