ISLAMABAD: A real estate joint venture between the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the Intelligence Bureau’s (IB) housing scheme has missed the completion deadline, compelling NAB to mount pressure on IB for handing over the plots to it without further delay.

According to documents available with Dawn, the NAB Welfare Cell and the Intelligence Bureau Employees Cooperative Housing Society (IBECHS) during a meeting on April 29 agreed that the latter would hand over plots to former on October 31.

However, during a subsequent meeting, the IBECHS gave a new date for handing over the possession of the plots to the NAB cell by December 31.

The NAB Welfare Cell and the IBECHS had signed an agreement according to which the latter consented to develop plots for the bureau’s employees.

Society is to develop plots in Islamabad for bureau officials under an accord

However, after a meeting on November 26, 2020, NAB Additional Director Tariq Mehmood Bhatti issued a circular stating that during a meeting of the officials of the NAB Welfare Cell/Rawalpindi Directorate of NAB with the IB officials, the management of the housing society had “informed that they are facing hurdles in timely procurement of land in Sector / Block P and AA allocated for NAB allottees, which might result in delay of development work and subsequently delay the process of handing over possession of plots to NAB allottees”.

NAB spokesman Nawazish Ali Asim could not be contacted for comments. However, a senior official of the bureau told Dawn that the Welfare Cell was coordinating on behalf of the employees to buy plots from the IB housing society at market rate.

He said that the Welfare Cell and the IBECHS had signed a memorandum of understanding in 2014 and the cell had now asked the housing society to expedite development work and hand over the possession of the plots since the delay was creating uncertainty among the bureau officials who had timely deposited the down payment and installments.

“In view of this, IBECHS is considering the proposal for allocation of alternate location in lieu of Sector / Block P and AA near Sector / Block G and AE of Gulberg Residencia Islamabad where most of the leveled area has already been procured,” the circular said.

As per the minutes of a meeting between NAB and the IBECHS on April 29, the latter confirmed relocation of plots for the bureau officials in F-Executive and A-Executive sectors where land price was comparatively higher than that of Block P and AA.

The minutes stated that “there is already a road available which links the main IBECHS blocks with new location, which would be widened later on”.

It was stated that “the engineering design will start with effect from August 01 and will expectedly be completed by October 31, 2021.”

In a recent meeting of officials of both the organisations in July, the IBECHS said that “the acquisition of required land for NAB allottees in Block A-Executive has almost completed”.

The minutes of the meeting however stated that “there are certain challenges in acquiring some of the patches in that specific area”.

The IBECHS set another deadline of December 31 for completion of the project.

The management committee of the housing society stated: “The land acquired for NAB allottees in Block F-Executive is situated in Mouza Bhimber Tarar which is absolutely free from any claim of Jammu and Kashmir Housing Society or any other entity”, but a petition of senior IB officials pending in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) contradicted the IBECHS claim.

The petition filed by deputy directors general Ghulam Hussain and Amir Mujahid Khan and directors Nadeem Arif Chaudhry and Hafeezullah Khan of the IB claimed that the land in question “is a disputed land, another Society named as “Jammu and Kashmir Cooperative Housing Society” submitted an application for registration of First Investigation Report on June 16, 2021 in Police Station Koral” against the office- bearers of the IBECHS.

When this reporter contacted IBECHS Secretary Information Mohammad Ali for comments, he attended the call but did not respond to queries.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2021