ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday directed the chairman Capital Development Authority (CDA) to stop ‘illegal construction’ in Bahria Town and submit a compliance report to the court within a week.

Justice Athar Minallah passed the restraining order on a petition filed by the association of residents, Bahria Town.

Last year, the petitioners had filed an application with the CDA to stop the housing society from violating the layout plan according to which the Bahria Town management had to develop public parks, mosques, schools, greenbelts and other utilities on the land reserved for public services.

The petitioners approached the IHC in May last year, saying they purchased costly plots in the housing society but the town management sold out the amenity plots after developing them for commercial purposes.

IHC issues directions on a petition filed by residents’ association

They requested the court to direct the CDA to restrain the Bahria Town management from commercialising the amenity land.

The CDA legal adviser, Ataullah Kundi, submitted a report to the court confirming that the housing society had violated the layout plan and converted a number of greenbelts, parks and even land reserved for mosques into commercial plots. The court observed that the “CDA has completely failed to perform its statutory obligations. Prima facie, it seems quite disturbing that the no-objection certificate (NOC) was issued to Bahria Town on July 7, 2001, and the regulator first time visited the site on May 4, 2013, after the petition was filed.”

The court directed that “the CDA chairman shall constitute a team of officials, who shall visit the housing scheme and ensure that any construction in violation of the NOC granted in 2001 shall be forthwith stopped till the decision of a show-cause notice” issued by the authority.

After the court issued its written order, the management of Bahria Town filed an application against it with the IHC through their counsel Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan and Barrister Gohar Ali Khan. In the application, the housing society requested the court to recall the order.

Talking to Dawn, Barrister Gohar claimed that Bahria Town did not violate the layout plan. He said the construction in the housing society had been carried out under the light of an order passed by the Lahore High Court (LHC) in 2004.

On July 8, 2004, Justice Akhtar Shabbir of the LHC directed the CDA to approve the layout plan of the housing society. The civic body filed an appeal against the order with the LHC, saying that approving the layout plan to any housing society was the sole prerogative of the CDA and the court could not pass such a direction. After the establishment of the IHC in January 2011, the case was transferred to the IHC.

However, the CDA in April 2012 withdrew the appeal, which enabled Bahria Town management to continue the construction in accordance with their ‘controversial’ layout plan. The CDA was the appellant in the matter and on April 18, 2012, it filed an application with the IHC for the withdrawal of the appeal, stating that the authority was not interested in continuing the litigation against Bahria Town, which was accepted by the court.

It may be noted that following the withdrawal of the appeal, the then CDA legal adviser Mohammad Ramzan Chaudhry, who is the incumbent vice-chairman of the Pakistan Bar Council, resigned from the CDA, saying the withdrawal was against the interest of the civic body.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2014