PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court has temporarily stopped Peshawar’s Defence Housing Authority from cancellation of plots of owners on account of non-payment of additional development charges (ADC).

A bench consisting of Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Fazal Subhan issued notices to DHA chairman and administrator and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary and sought their comments to a petition jointly field by 63 of the plot owners, challenging the levy of additional development charges (ADC) by the authority.

The petitioners have requested the court to declare the imposition of ADC by DHA as illegal and unconstitutional. They requested the court to stop the respondents from charging ‘unreasonable’ ADC and set aside the letters of March 4, 2024, and all other communication for its imposition sent to them.

They also prayed that the amounts already submitted as ADC by some of the petitioners might be returned to them.

Owners term imposition of additional development charges illegal

Barrister Babar Shahzad Imran appeared for the petitioners and contended that there was no concept of ADC in DHA Act, 2009. He stated that the reason for ADC given by DHA was inflation, however, inflation had gone down in the recent years and the ADC imposed was tainted with mala fide.

He said that the petitioners had made significant investments in different sectors of Phase-1 of DHA Peshawar between 2016 and 2024. He argued that despite the petitioners’ unwavering adherence to commitments, they faced the distressing and illegal imposition of exorbitant and unjustifiable ADC, which was around 41 per cent of the original development charges by DHA Peshawar.

Barrister Babar stated that through the impugned letter of March 4, DHA claimed that only a fraction of ADC due to inflation was charged to the petitioners, which was completely false and untrue. He stated that before the said letter, messages through mobile phones were received in late February by the petitioners intimating that ADC was levied.

Highlighting the impact of the impugned ADC, he claimed that an owner of 125 square yards of land, who had already paid Rs965,330 in development charges (DC), was being charged Rs380,000 (39pc) in ADC; an owner of 250 square yards of land was being charged Rs660,000 (41pc) ADC as compared to already paid Rs1,625,000 in DC; an owner of 500 square yards was being charged Rs930,000 (41pc) ADC as compared to already paid development charges of Rs2,250,000; and owners of 1000 square yards of land were being charged Rs1,530,000 (41pc) as ADC as compared to paid development charges of Rs3,765,000.

The counsel contended that the development of sectors A, B, C and D (Prism) was already in years 2018, 2020 and 2023, respectively, and against them, development charges were already paid under an instalment plan ending on Feb 10, 2021.

He said that for most landowners in those sectors, the injustice occurred after a span of six years whereby they already were living in the respective properties and were not liable to pay any development charges as the development had already come to an end.

He contended that the impugned letter was against section 11 of DHA Peshawar Act, 2009, and section 74 of DHA Constriction and Development Regulations, 2019, under which the respondents had only the authority to collect development charges and not to collect any additional development charges.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2024