PESHAWAR: The Afghan consulate will file a new legal case over the possession of a disputed market in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, a lawyer for the consulate said on Sunday.
The consulate was closed for an indefinite period on Friday to protest the removal of the Afghan national flag from a disputed property known as Afghan Market that has been in the possession of the Afghan government for several decades. On Saturday, provincial Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai said the government was making efforts to ensure the Afghan consulate was reopened as soon as possible but legal wrangling intensified on Sunday.
“We are reopening the entire case from scratch,” Shakil Gilani, a lawyer representing the Afghan consulate in Peshawar, told Arab News. “And this time the parties in the case will be the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan versus the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.”
Spread over 2,500 square meters, the Afghan Market is situated close to Peshawar’s famous Jinnah Park. It is estimated that Afghanistan’s national bank collects over Rs1 million ($6,380) in rent from shopkeepers working in the market every month.
Heavy machinery being used to evacuate shopkeepers from the disputed Afghan Market in Pakistan’s Peshawar city on Thursday night, October 10, 2019. (Arab News photo)
On October 8, the district administration evicted 180 Afghan shopkeepers from the market and removed the country’s national flag after a contempt of court petition was filed in the Peshawar High Court by Syed Intekhab Haider Abidi, the market’s owner, seeking implementation of a 1998 judgment in his favor. The administration later handed over possession of the shops to Abidi.
Abidi’s lawyer Fazal Haque Kohi Damani told Arab News his client has been allotted the land claimed by the Afghan consulate in 1948, and the documents furnished by the Afghan government to prove possession before several courts since were fake. He said Abidi registered an appeal in 1974 that he be given ownership of the land. In 1984, the Senior Member Board of Revenue (SMBR) Peshawar passed an order instructing that Abidi be given possession of the land within ten days.
The Afghan government then filed a writ petition against the SMBR’s decision, which was dismissed by the Peshawar High Court in 1998, Damani said, after which the Afghan government approached the Supreme Court of Pakistan, which also terminated their claim.
In 2001 and then again in 2014, the Supreme Court of Pakistan twice dismissed the Afghan government’s review petitions, Damani said.
In the latest legal battle, a four-member Supreme Court of Pakistan bench once again overturned the Afghan government’s petition on November 29, 2019.
“In view of court directions, now my client Abidi legally has ownership of over 27,225 square foot land,” Damani said.
Responding to a question about the Afghan consulate filing a new case, Damani said he was ready to face the consulate in any court of law, warning that Kabul had already lost the case over a dozen times in several courts.
According to the chairman of the Afghan Market, Malik Khan Sayed, the government of Afghanistan had bought the land from the then government of India in 1946, a year before the partition of India.
With the passage of time, he said the government of Pakistan had introduced the 1958 Act, which laid down provisions for transferring properties by non-Muslims moving to India from Pakistan or allotting properties to people moving to Pakistan from India.
Due to continuous unrest in Afghanistan, Sayed said, successive Afghan governments and their embassies ignored the 1958 Act regarding the transfer and conversion of properties.
Syed said the case had been under trial since 1971 and the land transferred under different names using bogus affidavits with the involvement of influential politicians and political parties, in connivance with land grabbers.
He said the “tragedy” was that the Afghan government had not taken timely interest in clearing the case.
