PYHA allowed to set up Youth Hostel in city

LAHORE: Punjab Board of Revenue (BoR) Judicial Member III Zubair Masood on Thursday upheld the verdict of the chief settlement commissioner (CSC) and ordered the partition of an evacuee property equally between Pakistan Youth Hostel Association (PYHA) and the 77-Club.

The PYHA wanted to set up a Youth Centre and an International Youth Hostel in Lahore and litigation was going on between the association and 77-Club for the last 35 years. The federal government had approved the sale of the evacuee property, commonly known as 77-Club, to the association in 1969.

The Club challenged the sale in 1970 with the CSC who ordered equal partition of the property between the association and the club in 1995. The CSC also formed a two-member committee consisting of a BoR secretary and the assistant commissioner to divide the land in two months. The club challenged the CSC’s orders in the Lahore High Court, which upheld the verdict. The PYHA applied for the division of the property but the verdict was not carried out because the Boy Scouts Association had illegally possessed one kanal of the land and the matter was referred to BoR Judicial Member III, who decided the case on Thursday.

The PYHA is providing cheap accommodation to youth in its 16 hostels in Pakistan. Senator Wasim Sajjad heads the association, while Agha Afzaal Hussain, the Senate of Pakistan secretary, is its honorary central secretary. It is an affiliate of the International Youth Hostel Federation (IYHF) London.

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