The Federal Constitutional Court has ruled that final decisions rendered by competent authorities under the Land Reforms Regulation of 1972 cannot be reopened decades later through an administrative order.
FCCP nullifies administrative order issued after 24 Years, rules final land reforms decisions cannot be reopened
ISLAMABAD, Jul 21 (APP):The Federal Constitutional Court has ruled that final decisions rendered by competent authorities under the Land Reforms Regulation of 1972 cannot be reopened decades later through an administrative order.
Declaring the Federal Land Commission Chairman’s August 22, 1996 order—issued after a lapse of 24 years—illegal, the court clarified that land restored on the basis of legally finalized decisions cannot be taken back from its original owners.
A two-member bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court Justice Amin-Ud-Din Khan, accepted the civil appeals while setting aside the August 22, 1996 order of the Federal Land Commission Chairman, the Lahore High Court’s ruling, and the subsequent mutation.
In a detailed 25-page judgment authored by Chief Justice Amin-Up-Din Khan, the court noted that the decisions issued by the Deputy Land Commissioner and the Land Commissioner in 1972 were never challenged before any higher legal forum. Consequently, they had attained finality, leaving no legal justification to reopen or alter them.
The court observed that the proceedings initiated by the Federal Land Commission in 1977 were strictly limited to determining whether Mst. Hshmat Habib-ur-Rahman owned additional agricultural land in another district. The purpose or effect of those proceedings was neither to reopen nor to nullify the final confiscation orders of 1972.
The ruling stated that the Federal Land Commission Chairman, operating on the presumption that Mst. Hshmat Habib-ur-Rahman and her husband were separate declarants, issued an order contrary to the final 1972 decisions—despite the fact that this very plea had been rejected by competent authorities back in 1972 and was never legally challenged.
The Federal Constitutional Court further ruled that disputes concerning land ownership or benami transactions cannot be adjudicated through administrative proceedings, particularly in matters that have already been settled conclusively under the law.
The bench noted that the appellants had been cultivating the disputed land as tenants since 1971. As official tenants under the Land Reforms Regulation of 1972, they had acquired a legal right to have their land allotment considered, which could not be stripped away through subsequent illegal administrative actions.
Concluding the judgment, the court held that the Federal Land Commission Chairman exceeded his legal authority by reopening a matter after more than two decades that had already attained legal finality. Therefore, the order dated August 22, 1996, ran counter to the Land Reforms Regulation 1972 and established principles of finality, and could not be sustained.
