Punjab has rolled out a new legal framework aimed squarely at land grabbing and forced dispossession. The centrepiece is the Punjab Protection of Ownership of Immovable Property Ordinance, 2025, approved by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz and brought into force to give ordinary owners a fast, documented path to recover possession and stop encroachments. Multiple national outlets report that the ordinance targets not only grabbers but also their facilitators inside and outside government, signalling a policy shift from slow civil suits to quick administrative and quasi-judicial remedies.
At the heart of the law is a time-bound dispute chain. First stop is a District Redressal Committee (DRC) in every district—headed by the Deputy Commissioner with the District Police Officer and other officials—so that private land-possession disputes are heard immediately instead of drifting for years. Appeals from the DRC lie to a Special Tribunal led by a retired High Court judge, and both tiers are designed to conclude matters within about 90 days, a timeline the government has publicly emphasised in its rollout briefings. The idea is simple: get a clean, on-paper decision fast, reduce room for muscle power, and push everything into a traceable record.
Politically, the message has been unambiguous: the state will “stand with the weak” against grabbers, and land-mafia influence is to be shut down through speed, transparency, and coordinated action between revenue and police. Early coverage highlights that the ordinance took immediate effect province-wide, with the administration presenting it as a structural fix rather than a one-off operation. If you own a plot, this means you no longer start from scratch in a general civil court; you start at the DRC with documents in hand, and you get a dated, reviewable order on a short clock.
Practically, owners should prepare like this: bring title papers (fard/jamabandi, registry, mutation), maps/site plans, CNIC, any previous complaints, and dated photographs or geotagged video of the encroachment. File at the DRC and insist on receiving a diary number and a copy of the order when issued. If you lose at the DRC or the other side is aggrieved, the appeal lies to the Special Tribunal; again, keep every receipt and order—this regime is designed to work on paper trails, not verbal assurances. Where criminality is involved (threats, violence, forgery), a parallel FIR can—and in many cases should—be pursued so the possession case and the criminal case reinforce each other.
This ownership drive sits alongside Punjab’s broader land-administration digitisation—e-Stamping and e-Registration—so that transfers and encumbrances leave a clearer forensic footprint. While those platforms existed before 2025, the government is now pairing front-end digitisation with back-end, time-bound adjudication to choke off the usual loopholes that mafias exploit (missing files, “lost” registers, tactical delays). For buyers, that means fewer excuses to bypass proper stamping/registration, and for existing owners, a faster route to recorded relief if someone occupies your land.
Bottom line: the 2025 ordinance gives Punjab a 90-day, two-tier remedy against illegal possession, with clear roles for district administration and police and an appellate tribunal headed by a retired judge. If you’re facing a fresh grab or a long-running encroachment, move your case into this new channel immediately, assemble your documents, and keep every step in writing. The policy goal is speed and traceability; your job, as a litigant, is to feed the system clean paperwork so it can work as advertised.
