RAHIM YAR KHAN: On Wednesday, the Sadiqabad Municipal Committee (MC) sealed 437 shops in a shopping mall near the railway station in compliance with the orders of the Lahore High Court (LHC), as per a statement by the deputy director of public relations.
According to sources, the municipal committee claimed that the shopkeepers owed rent amounting to over Rs. 100 million.
The matter had been in litigation since 2015 when a few people fraudulently obtained an illegal no-objection certificate from the irrigation department, which they used to obtain the shopping mall on lease.
Furthermore, the irrigation department later terminated the NOC, and the shopping mall was declared the property of the MC.
The shopkeepers, however, refused to pay the rent and filed cases in different courts. The AC said that if the shopkeepers paid their arrears, the shops would be reopened.
Surprisingly, allegations of the involvement of a former local PML-N MPA in the matter have also surfaced.
An influential land grabber, Chaudhry Sadiq, allegedly promised the shopkeepers that he would help them obtain ownership of the shops.
As a result, the shopkeepers stopped paying rent to MC and paid Sadiq instead. The MC was thus deprived of its rightful rent.
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