Lahore administration serves notices to 24 illegal petrol pumps

LAHORE: The district administration of Lahore has served notices to the managements of 24 petrol pumps run on the state land in the city despite cancellation of their leases, ARY News reported on Friday.

As bench of the Supreme Court had recently ordered the Punjab government and the city district government to take over all 24 petrol pumps, being run illegally and auction them through open bidding.

The district administration in its notices directed the petrol pump managements to sell their petroleum stocks by February 05, the authorities will take hold of the land and seal these sites after this deadline.

The district administration will not be bound to stay orders of courts after the ruling of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the notices said.

The DC Lahore had directed the Assistant Commissioners to serve these notices to the illegal petrol pumps managements in their jurisdiction.

The administration has also ordered displaying banners at these petrol pumps about closure of petroleum sales on February 05.

Deputy Commissioner Lahore had submitted a report  to a two-judge bench, headed by former Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, and said there were 32 petrol pumps, established on the state land in the provincial capital. Four of them were established on the land of Municipal Corporation of Lahore (MCL), while 20 were on the land of the provincial government.

The land of remaining eight pumps had already been acquired by the authorities for the Orange Line Metro Train project.

The DC pointed out that owners of all 24 pumps had not been vacating the possession of the land for several years, though their leases had expired.

The bench observed that the court would not allow misappropriation of the state land and ordered the DC to immediately seal the petrol pumps and put them on sale through auction.