ISLAMABAD, Feb 27: The DHA Valley Project, a joint venture of DHA, the real estate entity of the army, Bahria Town (BT) and Habib Rafique Limited (HRL) has come under criticism after through an advertisement, DHA refused to accept last installment payments of the project. After payment of the last installment, plots were supposed to be handed over to the owners.

Although a clause in the agreement makes provision for delay and according to a BT official the delay is only temporary and plots after completion would be handed over to the owners.

However, recently formed DHA Valley affectees association is considering going into litigation against the DHA.

The project was signed on August 16, 2008, and the signatories were Brigadier (retired) Javed Iqbal then DHA administrator, Malik Riaz of BT and Zahid Rafique of HRL.

According to the project, BT and HRL were responsible for acquiring and development of over 40,000 kanals of land for DHA Valley, near Phase II of DHA Extension of Islamabad.

Following launching of the project in 2008, about 110,000 civilians and 41,000 defence personnel, including the personnel of the armed forces applied with the DHA.

After the application process was complete, members of DHA Valley started paying installments with regular intervals.

After the 12th installment, the authority was bound to hand over the possession of the plots to the members.

However on September, 2011, when the members were about to pay their last installment, the DHA issued an advertisement and restrained them from depositing the last installment till further orders.

It was our last communication with the DHA officials after that they never contacted us, said Riaz Hanif directly affected by the delay.

Those who had purchased plots in the DHA Valley were witnessing a higher degree of uncertainty because they don’t know what is going to happen with their hard earned money, which they deposited with the DHA, he added.

Hanif who is also a member of DHA Valley’s association said that in order to safeguard their own interest, they had formed an association recently to fight a legal battle with the DHA and land developers.

According to him, their demands include the immediate completion and handover of the plots to the members and in case the authority fails to hand over the plots to the members, then it should refund the amount, along with interest.

According to the agreement of the DHA Valley project, BT has the exclusive right for the maintenance of DHA Valley for 25 years.

Under the agreement, DHA and BT both opened a joint account ‘DHA Valley Master Account’ and all the amounts received in the account would be transferred to BT, within three days.

The agreement, however, did not set a time frame for the completion of the project as clause ‘a’ of section 10 of the agreement stated: “Time of completion to be delayed in case of events beyond control of BT.”

However, Col (retied) Tariq Kamal former director town planning DHA and an affected person of DHA Valley project said that he had pointed out some wrongdoings in the DHA affairs.

He lamented that the authorities instead of appreciating him terminated his services.

He alleged that over Rs62 billion had been taken away by the DHA and BT from about 150,000 members of DHA Valley project.

Another twist to the tale is an application by Dr Shafiqur Rehman. Mr Rehman, a rival of Malik Riaz, on May 30, 2012, in an application filed in the Supreme Court for taking suo motu action linked the matter of DHA Valley with the death of Lt-Gen Imtiaz Hussain the former managing director Army Welfare Trust (AWT) and Babar Ali Khan manager Askari Bank DHA branch, who was killed during a drag car race organised by BT.

On May 26, Gen Imtiaz was found dead in this bungalow. According to Dr Shafique, Gen Imtiaz procured huge loans for DHA Islamabad on the request of BT and was facilitating transactions from DHA to BT in connection with DHA Valley Project.

All the transactions allegedly happened through Babar Ali Khan who was killed in drag car race organised by BT, stated the application.

The benefactors needed scapegoats for fixing the responsibility of the mess and they eliminated Gen Imtiaz and Babar, the application added.

When contacted, the DHA public relations officer (PRO), he said, “I can’t speak on this matter.”

He said that the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) may be approached for getting official version of the DHA authorities in the said matter.

On the other hand, Col (retired) Khalil Ahmed, senior BT official said that DHA Valley is a huge project and it would need time to be completed.

He, however, did not give any specific time frame for the completion.

According to him, the development work is being carried out at the DHA Valley project and there is no delay in the project’s completion.