IHC issues notices to CDA

[Salman]

Islamabad

Justice Noor ul Haq N Qureshi of Islamabad High Court (IHC) issued a notice to the Capital Development Authority (CDA) seeking its reply after a petitioner contended before the court that the civic body is yet to hand him over the possession of his flat in Sector I-15 for which they had started the process in 2005.

Justice Qureshi, while expressing his annoyance over the unnecessary delay, issued a notice to the CDA and observed that ‘why not all public auctions and allotments of plots to federal secretaries and other high officials be halted till the flats in Sector I-15 are not handed over to the allottees’.

The petitioner, Muhammad Altaf, a retired clerk of Wapda, through his counsel Barrister Masroor Shah, told the court that CDA in 2005 had invited applications from public at large for allotment of plots and constructed flats in Sector I-15.

The petitioner bought a flat for her orphan niece measuring 1,300 square feet, at a total price of Rs1.4 million. The CDA, despite receiving full amount for the flat, neither completed construction nor handed over possession till date despite passage of eight long years.

The petitioner adopted before the court that it has recently transpired to him through advertisements in the newspapers that the civic body is contemplating to allot plots in Sectors D-12 and E-12 where applications have been invited from general public.

The petitioner prayed to the court that since CDA has miserably failed to hand over possession of the flast in Sector I-15 despite lapse of more than 8 long years, he may be allotted a plot in Sector D-12 or E-12.

The legal counsel of the petitioner argued that CDA being a public body couldn’t be given a tacit licence to fill their coffers and earn profit from poor citizens. Barrister Shah argued that CDA has been hoodwinking the public at large for almost 8 years now and had wasted the money received from allottees towards its extravagance and non-development expenditures. Barrister Shah further argued that if CDA has plots for allotment to political and bureaucratic bigwigs and its own high officials, it was its legal and statutory responsibility to adjust the I-15 allottees first who have been waiting for getting return on their investment for years. The court, while hearing in the matter, adjourned the case with date in office