PESHAWAR, Feb 24: The Peshawar High Court on Friday declared as illegal a municipal department’s order about cancellation of allotment of a plot of land for construction of a five-star hotel in the Hayatabad Township.

A two-member bench comprising the court’s Chief Justice Tariq Pervez Khan and Justice Saleem Khan accepted a writ petition filed by Hashwani Hotels challenging the order of the city development and municipal department issued on March 7, 2005, whereby the allotment of the plot to the group had been cancelled.

A few days after the cancellation of the allotment, the authority also announced a date for auctioning the disputed plot.

The high court had last year suspended the impugned order and the proposed auction.

The bench had reserved its order in the petition after completion of arguments a few days ago by the counsel of the petitioner and the municipal department.

Advocate Naeem Bukhari represented the petitioner whereas M. Sardar Khan appeared for the respondent.

The petitioner had applied to the erstwhile Peshawar Development Authority (PDA) for allotment of a plot in Phase 2, Hayatabad, for construction of a five star hotel. The PDA on March 11, 1996, allotted the plot to Hashwani Hotels.

After introduction of the local government system in 2001, the PDA was turned into the CDMD.

The municipal department issued a notice to the petitioner about cancellation of the allotment and finally an order was issued whereby the allotment was cancelled.

Advocate Bukhari argued that the order of the CDMD was illegal. He contended that the petitioner had paid five per cent Capital Value Tax (CVT) and the construction plan of the hotel was also approved by the PDA.

Mr Bukhari argued that the petitioner had not committed any illegality on the basis of which the respondent could cancel the allotment. He requested the court to set aside the impugned order.

Advocate Sardar Khan contended that under the agreement between the department and the petitioner the latter had to submit the building plan within six months, but the petitioner did not comply with that provision.

He argued that finally the PDA called upon the petitioner to submit the building plan within 15 days and to start the construction in another 25 days.

Mr Khan contended that from the beginning when the allotment letter was issued to the petitioner, requests were repeatedly made for compliance with the agreement, but those were ignored.

He stated that for the first time, on Sep 3, 1998, the petitioner submitted the drawing to the PDA which was thoroughly scrutinised and several irregularities were pointed out and the petitioner was asked to amend the drawing.

However, the petitioner did not follow those directives, the counsel said.