Unfortunately, our government organisations still think that protecting the citizens’ rights isn’t a state responsibility and they can do whatever they want to with the people’s lives and properties.

This attitude was again reflected by WAPDA which had moved the Supreme Court against the Peshawar High Court’s decision to pay an amount of Rs4,000 per marla to a citizen Mr Waheed in Mardan after 24 kanals and 15 marlas of land was acquired from him.

This ancestral land located in the Mohabbatabad area of Mardan was acquired at a meagre rate of Rs350 per marla. The move had forced Waheed to challenge the act in the Peshawar High Court which later ruled that the amount should be increased to Rs4,000.

However, a two-member bench headed by Justice Sajjad rejected the plea, ordering WAPDA to pay the amount as per the Peshawar High Court ruling.

During the hearing, Justice Sajjad remarked whether it wasn’t an injustice that WAPDA could acquire someone’s ancestral land for Rs350 per marla through which one could only buy a cup of tea at any restaurant.

The judge noted that they received a port that the rate for one marla of land in the area was Rs17,000 but the WAPDA had objection even over Rs4,000 fixed by the Peshawar High Court.

Shakirullah Afridi – the counsel for WAPDA – argued that the land was barren and his client had made that cultivable. He added that there was nothing wrong with the payment because of the lower land price in the area.

However, the two-member bench dismissed the appeal and back the judgment passed by the Peshawar High Court.