Evacuee Trust Properties (Management and Disposal) Act, 1975

This law sets up the machinery that manages 'evacuee trust property' in Pakistan — properties (temples, gurdwaras, shrines, and other religious, charitable or educational institutions) that were left behind by people, mainly Hindus and Sikhs, who migrated after Partition and that had been attached to a charitable, religious or educational trust. Rather than treating these as ordinary evacuee property, the Act carves out a special regime for anything tied to a trust or institution.

Section 3 creates the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) as a body corporate that can own property, sue and be sued. Section 4 spells out the Board's job in detail: keeping records of all evacuee trust property, preparing an annual budget, buying, selling, leasing or mortgaging such property with government approval, maintaining shrines and providing for pilgrims, and even setting up or funding orphanages, hospitals and educational institutions from trust income. Section 6 vests all evacuee trust property in the Federal Government, and Section 7 pools it — along with sale proceeds, rents, and profits — into a single 'Trust Pool' used to fund the Board's work.

Section 8 lets the Chairman decide, by a decision that is final and not open to challenge in court, whether a given property counts as 'evacuee trust property,' and then declare it so by Gazette notification; anyone with an interest in the property must first be given a hearing. Section 10 similarly validates certain historical transfers of such property made before cut-off dates in 1964 (rural) and 1968 (urban), treating them as sales to the Chief Settlement Commissioner.

The Act insulates the Board's decisions heavily from outside interference: Section 9 exempts trust-pool property from being seized to satisfy court decrees, Section 14 bars civil courts from hearing matters the Act assigns to the Board or Federal Government, and Section 15 protects officials from being sued for good-faith acts. A person unhappy with an order still has an appeal (Section 16) and revision (Section 17) route inside the system, each with a 15-day time limit. Section 21 gives the Chairman and officers civil-court-like powers, such as summoning witnesses and compelling document production, when hearing these cases.

Section 22 makes it an offence to conceal, misrepresent or misappropriate evacuee trust property, punishable with imprisonment of up to three years plus a fine (no fixed fine amount is specified in the text). Section 24 lets the Board recover unpaid dues as arrears of land revenue, and Section 25 allows ejectment of unauthorised occupants, with force if necessary.

This is a 1975 law (in force since mid-1974) that has already been amended at least once (a 1984 change to Section 4), and its original repeal clause (Section 33) was itself omitted by a 1981 ordinance. Given its age and amendment history, anyone relying on specific procedural details — especially the historical cut-off dates in Section 10 — should check the current official text.