ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has dismissed an officer of the land directorate and demoted two others for their involvement in illegal allotment of 59 plots in D-13.

The CDA, following an inquiry report, sacked former deputy director land Taimoor Ahmed and demoted an assistant director and a sub-assistant.

Sources said the management also wanted to take action against former director land Fariduddin, but he obtained a stay order from court in his favour. The CDA management decided that his dismissal order will be subject to the court decision.

Recently, the CDA also took action against some officers of the planning wing and removed them from their position for mishandling an operation against a marquee.

In October 2019, the scandal involving allotment of 59 residential plots in D-13 surfaced and CDA Chairman Amer Ali Ahmed suspended the then director land Fariduddin.

The director and his staffers, despite orders from the then member estate, had allotted the plots without conducting balloting.

Scandal involving allotment of 59 plots in D-13 without balloting surfaced in October last year

CDA’s 2017 standard operating procedure (SOP) prepared by the then chairman of the civic authority, clearly stated:

“After principle approval of case from member estate, plots will be allotted through manual open balloting in the presence of two members of CDA board. Date of balloting will be advertised in at least three leading newspapers.”

However, in the case of D-13, the land directorate skipped the balloting process and allotted 59 plots. The sources said most of the corner plots and plots located at ideal places in the sector were allotted on the basis of so-called provisional allotment letters.

After the 2017 SOP, sources said, hundreds of plots were allotted by the land directorate skipping the balloting process and with backdate signatures to show that the plots had been allotted before the SOP was introduced. However, the record such as diary numbers showed that the plots were allotted after August 2017.

The CDA’s security directorate last year also conducted an inquiry in which it transpired that the plots were allotted with backdated signatures.

Since then, the security directorate has caught a numbers of cases. The sources said last week three allotment files were confiscated by the security directorate from the One-Window Operation minutes before their allotment.

In August 2017, after balloting to allot plots in 1-12, the CDA record showed that there were over 500 vacant plots for next balloting.

Afterward, no balloting was held but a majority of the plots, which were mentioned in the list, shown ‘allotted’ before August 2017.

“This is a simple case. All those plots which were mentioned in the list should remain un-allotted as no balloting was held. If the plots are being shown allotted, it means they were allotted with backdated signature,” said an officer of the CDA.

CDA Chairman Amer Ali Ahmed has so far made several reshuffle in the land directorates in a bid to bring transparency.

Meanwhile, a press release issued on Sunday said the CDA had also directed to take back official vehicles being used by the said officials.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2020