LAHORE: Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed of the Lahore High Court (LHC) has directed the provincial government and the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) to submit the original map of the land where the Liberty Parking Plaza has been built, in order to confirm whether the land had been allocated for the plaza or was just assigned for a public park.Saeed directed the authorities to produce all records including maps of the land so that the issue, that has prompted protests from traders, could be resolved.The petition was moved by seven petitioners, which included shop owners, namely Muhammad Azhar Sidduque, Muhammad Saleem Hafeez, Mian Muhammad Haroon of m/s Hotel MelRose Inn, Arshad Kareem Qureshi of m/s Toy Land, M Zakariya Basheer Malik, Arif Mehmood of m/s Liberty Gift Center and Syed Dilawar Shah of m/s Alnafay Shopping Mall.
During the hearing held on Wednesday, Advocate Khwaja Saeed Zafar submitted a reply to the petition on behalf of the LDA and the provincial government. It said, “The Liberty Parking Plaza has been constructed on non-utilised land and there existed no public park at the site as claimed by the petitioners.”The petitioners’ counsel, Muhammad Azhar Siddique, said, “Other than adding to the beauty of the area, the parking plaza had the capacity to provide parking facility to about 300 cars at a time, the total expenditure on the plaza being Rs 670 million.”He added that even though the LDA owned the land, there was still a part of the land, 13 marlas precisely, which was purchased from the United Christian Hospital against a payment of Rs 50 million. Siddique also pointed out that the area’s traders did not raise any objections when the plaza’s construction was started.He requested the court to declare the open space a property of the PHA and that all subsequent transactions or transfers of it by any authority be considered illegal – Dailytimes
