Port Authorities Lands And Buildings (Recovery Of Possession) Ordinance, 1962

This 1962 Ordinance gives Port Authorities at Pakistan's major ports (those covered by the Ports Act, 1908) a fast-track legal process to recover possession of land or buildings from lessees who won't leave after their lease ends, or from people occupying the land without authorisation. Section 3 lets a Port Authority, when a lease expires or is terminated, or when it finds an unauthorized occupant, issue a written notice requiring the person to vacate and remove any structures they built, within a stated time.

If the person ignores the notice, section 4 lets the Port Authority take the matter to an Authorized Officer — a specially designated Magistrate of the First Class — who gives the occupant a chance to be heard and then either lets them stay on conditions or orders them to vacate and remove structures. If the occupant still won't comply, the Authorized Officer can personally enter the property, use necessary force to evict them, and demolish the structures, though evictions cannot happen between sunset and sunrise (section 4(3)).

Section 5 allows an appeal to the District Magistrate (or Additional District Magistrate) within fifteen days, whose decision is final and cannot be challenged elsewhere, though both sides must be given a hearing first. Sections 7 and 8 make the evicted lessee or occupant pay for the cost of demolishing their own structures, recoverable through an auction of the demolished materials if unpaid, with any shortfall recovered as arrears of land revenue and any surplus returned to them; unpaid rent at the time of eviction is similarly recoverable as land revenue arrears (section 8).

Section 9 bars courts from questioning anything done under the Ordinance or granting injunctions against a Port Authority's actions, and section 10 protects the Port Authority and its officials from being sued for actions taken in good faith. This is an older law, amended in 1968 and 1984, so current procedural details should be checked against the latest text.