ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has filed a contempt petition against the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (Iesco) for violating court orders and providing new connections without the mandatory no-objection certificate (NOC) from the civic agency.

Last year, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) while deciding on 14 identical petitions had made the NOC from the CDA mandatory for new utility connections. The court had restrained the utility service providers from processing any request without the NOC.

When Justice Athar Minallah of the IHC took up the contempt petition on Monday, CDA’s additional legal adviser Amir Gill contended that Iesco Chief Executive Engineer Basit Zaman, General Manager (Technical) Engineer Khalid Nazir and Director (Operations) Raja Asghar were flouting the court order.

He said the respondents were not implementing the IHC judgment that barred Iesco and the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines (SNGPL) from providing connections to unauthorised buildings and unlawful premises.

Senior officials of power utility company flouting IHC restraining order passed last year, CDA’s petition says

The petition stated: “CDA with available resources and manpower is trying hard to implement the original master plan of capital city devised by an international architecture firm, Doxiadis Associates, which provides only a broader outline, framework for the new capital whereas it was the responsibility of the CDA to make master programme of schemes keeping in mind basic concept of the master plan.”

The CDA framed the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Zoning Regulations 1992 which divided the capital into five zones. The civic agency also framed Islamabad’s Residential Sectors Zoning (Building Control) Regulations 2005 which were extended to all private and public land/plots except those in the Diplomatic Enclave or mentioned specifically.

The petition conceded that in spite of making efforts the CDA could not succeed in controlling unplanned and unauthorised construction due to the factors related to jurisdictional overlap with the Islamabad district administration, sale and purchase through the revenue department and unauthorised approval of building plans by union councils.

Certain areas were exempted from acquisition while some schemes were not prepared in un-acquired areas under the CDA Ordinance.

Moreover, approval of housing societies by the circle registrar cooperative, limited capacity of the directorate of building control, unplanned housing schemes and projects, unauthorised and misleading marketing by housing schemes, land grabbing, establishment of wedding halls, mushroom growth of multi-storey buildings, frivolous litigation in some cases, pending inquiries, limited resources and supply of services by Iesco and the SNGPL were the other factors behind the unplanned constructions.

It said the CDA had conveyed to Iesco the IHC restraining order and requested its officials concerned not to issue connections without the NOC/permission from the civic agency.

The office of the sub-registrar was also intimated to abide by the by-laws.

However, the petition added, Iesco through a letter dated Aug 3, 2018, “blatantly refused to help in the implementation of the CDA by-laws and judgment of the honorable court”.

The petition requested the court to proceed against senior officers of Iesco for not implementing the court order.

After preliminary hearing, the single-member bench of Justice Athar Minallah issued notices to the Iesco chief engineer, general manager technical and the director operations and adjourned the hearing till a date to be fixed by the registrar office.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2018