ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) on Monday suspended six land directorate officials for alleged misconduct and corruption.

According to a notification issued by the authority, the suspended officials include two deputy directors who have been suspended “on account of serious misconduct and negligence” with immediate effect.

In addition to deputy directors Inayatullah Khan and Irfanullah, Qaim Ali Shah, Mohammad Hanif, Nauman Khan and Mohsin Amir have also been suspended.

New officials were posted in place of the suspended staffers, including Deputy Director Syed Ali Murtaza and Syed Naveedur Rehman.

Sources said the officials have been accused of issuing no demand certificates (NDC) - a prerequisite for land transfers - while bypassing the scrutiny committee, which is supposed to determine whether allotment files are genuine or fake.

“The officials we suspended today are accused of bypassing the scrutiny committee while issuing NDCs for some plots,” CDA spokesperson Mazhar Hussain confirmed. He said that responsibility will be determined after a formal investigation.

Staffers, including two deputy directors, suspended for allegedly issuing NDCs without scrutiny committee’s approval

Sources said that a number of plots were allotted to affected people - those whose land has been acquired by the CDA, entitling them to compensation in the form of plots - in the last year on the basis of fake documents and backdated, fake signatures.

After 2016, no plots can be allotted without ballotting. But the land directorate allegedly allotted plots with backdated signatures and, in some cases, on the basis of fake files, in violation of this ban.

The sources said the CDA’s security directorate recently collected records of files of allotments in I-11 and found that NDCs were issued without the scrutiny committee’s approval.

They said the security directorate informed the chairman, who ordered an investigation and the suspension of officials who were supposed to obtain the committee’s approval before issuing NDCs.

Other than I-11, select plots were also allotted in D-13 and I-12, they said, adding that there had been bogus allotment cases and backdated signatures involving these three sectors.

They said that many plots allotted on the basis of bogus NDCs were also transferred from one party to another using the CDA’s One Window Operation.

A CDA officer said: “The transfer records of these three sectors of the last eight months from the OWP should be checked to find the truth.”

After reports of alleged fake allotment cases, CDA high-ups recently directed that no plot could be transferred without clearance from the scrutiny committee.

A letter issued by the director land on June 12 said that without the committee’s approval, the directorate could not issue NDCs to transfer plots.

The letter had also asked the One Window Operation wing not to entertain any affected peoples’ transfer cases without the committee’s approval.

An inquiry is also ongoing in the backdated and bogus allotment of more than 300 plots, discovered by the security directorate last year.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2020