ISLAMABAD: A recent correspondence between the Federal Government Employees Housing Authority (FGEHA) and the Islamabad High Court (IHC) transpired that the subsidised plots were allotted to the court’s officials in violation of rules.

The correspondence revealed that the aggrieved employees filed a petition in this regard in the Islamabad High Court invoking the court’s jurisdiction against allotment of plots to their fellow colleagues under the quota reserved for this court. The petition alleged that the housing authority has not only allotted plots to blue eyed officials, but even to those who were not the employees of the IHC.

FGEHA constituted a committee to address grievances of the petitioners.

In response to the petitions of the IHC officials, the secretary of the FGEHA committee wrote to the IHC that the “petitioners’ specific claims” consider them for allotment of plots in ongoing schemes as per their seniority.

The secretary quoted from the petition as saying: “Allotments made in contravention of rules and standard operating procedure to the blue eyed officials at prime locations may be declared null and void.”

The letter stated that the personal hearing was scheduled to be conducted on Dec 21 last year but no one appeared on behalf of the petitioners.

It further said that “in the meanwhile, on Feb 3, the Islamabad High Court announced the judgement…after the announcement of the judgement, the claim of the petitioner has become infructuous.”

The IHC division bench comprising Chief Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani authored the judgement and declared the ongoing and upcoming FGEHA’s real estate ventures for bureaucracy and judges as illegal and issued direction to plan housing schemes for citizens.

As per the court’s judgement, the allotment of plots on subsidized rates to the elite groups caused Rs1 trillion loss to the public exchequer.

The verdict highlighted anomalies even in the registration as it noted that “Even the selection made from about 135,000 registered members in Membership Drive-II lacked transparency.”

Meanwhile, another letter of the FGEHA to the IHC revealed that the registrar office verified the false claims of those employees in 2017 whose appointments were declared void by the Supreme Court in 2016.

Due to the verification of the IHC’s registrar office, the ineligible officers were allotted expensive plots on subsidised rates.

The housing authority in another letter quoted the application of additional registrar of the Lahore High Court (LHC) Abdul Hafeez who was also seeking a plot from the FGEHA but his request was turned down since he was not working in the federal capital.

FGEHA stated that Hafeez pointed out two additional registrars Shahazada Aslam and Umar Daraz Shakir of the LHC and one Shakeel Ahmed Qazi of Sindh High Court were also given plots in subsidised housing schemes.

However, the housing authority stated that “a scrutiny of the record has revealed that these employees were allotted plots as per policy of the FGEHA after verification of their service particulars from the Honorable Islamabad High Court dated Aug 1, 2017 and Oct 23, 2017.”

It pointed out that pursuant to the Supreme Court’s judgement of September 2016, IHC has de-notified them on Sept 27, 2016.

Subsequently, the FGEHA stated: “It is necessary to get these facts verified from IHC before passing any order on representation of Mr Abdul Hafeez.”

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2022