ISLAMABAD, May 30: Ten former heavyweights of the Capital Development Authority lost their claim to CDA largess when the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday dismissed their petitions for allotment of residential plots as a right.
All the 10 officers had served the CDA in high positions but on deputation.
Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui ruled that officers who had left the CDA prior to November 28, 2005 could not be eligible for such allotment. It was the date CDA Board declared deputationists eligible for the plots, and taken as a cut off date.
“If the arguments of the petitioners is accepted, then all the deputationists who served CDA in different cadres during past decades shall become entitled to allotment of plots. By providing cut off dates, in fact, anomaly of the situation has been avoided, which to my mind is based on reasonableness and standard on rationale,” the judge said in his order.
Consequently the petitions of former CDA chairman Qamar Zaman, Members administration Ghulam Dastgir and Mohammad Atta, Directors lands and rehabilitation Laeeque Shah, Mohammad Jalal Sikandar Sultan, Zafar Hussain and Mohammad Ali, Director Planning and Evaluation Imtiaz Ahmed Vohra, Director Khalid Khan and former deputy commissioner Malik Zafar Iqbal, who had served the CDA on deputation, stood dismissed.
Their counsel had submitted that their clients were entitled to plots but CDA denied them their right, whereas it accommodated other similarly placed officers.
They said November 28, 2005 cut off date was not prescribed by any statute. On the other hand officers who joined CDA after November 2005 were given plots even after completion of their six months service in the authority, they said.
They recalled that on August 5, 1986, the cabinet of government of Pakistan approved a scheme for 5,000 houses for the government servants in Islamabad on self-finance basis. Following talks between the CDA and the Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation it was decided in February 2002 that CDA would provide land for the scheme with the approval of the prime minister.
They said the policy covered the CDA employees. Many who served CDA on deputation also got plots in the residential sector after the CDA Board declared deputationists eligible in its meeting of November 28, 2005.
CDA counsel Barrister Masroor Shah however contended that under the laid down criteria only those officials who were working in the CDA on and after November 2005 were eligible for the allotment of plots. He reminded that CDA Board laid down the criteria in accordance with a judgment of the Supreme Court and Land Disposal Regulation, 2005.
He said the CDA acted fairly, justly and in accordance with the earlier orders of the apex court. “The CDA is not in a position to allot land to every deputationist out of CDA employees quota,” he added.
Meanwhile, the same court also issued notices to CDA chairman and director enforcement CDA to personally appear before the court, in public interest litigation against encroachments in Islamabad.
Advocate Jehangir Khan Jadoon has petitioned the court that there have been massive encroachments in all markets of Islamabad causing difficulties for the shoppers. The encroachers have covered the parking areas and public places while the CDA is initiating no action against them.
He said the encroachers, traders, market associations and other vested interest have made the life of common citizen miserable, have created lots of difficulties for general public in markets like Karachi Company in G-9 Markaz, Super Market, Aabpara Market, Melody, Jinnah Super, F-8 Markaz, F-10 Markaz, F-11 Markaz, G-10 Markaz, G-11 Markaz and other shopping centres in the entire urban area of Islamabad.
He alleged that most of the traders, encroachers have permanently established their business in parking area of the markets - any place/space they find left open for public use - with the connivance of the respondent CDA.
He requested that the court direct CDA to clean all the public place of encroachers and take legal action against them.
