ISLAMABAD, April 10: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday declared that officials working on deputation in the Capital Development Authority (CDA) are not entitled to any plot.

The ruling was given by Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui on identical petitions filed by serving and retired CDA officers.

The former and incumbent officers of the civic body in June 2012 challenged the balloting for the allotment of 109 plots to the senior officers of the CDA in which 23 were working in the CDA on deputation.

Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation (FGEHF) in its meeting on April 24, 1990 had decided to allot 20 per cent residential plots to the CDA officials.

For allotment of plots, director-general FGEHF had set certain terms and conditions, and among them the principle of seniority was the integral part.

In 2005, then CDA chairman Kamran Lashari amended the Islamabad Land Disposal Regulations (ILDR) which entitled those officers who were working in the CDA on deputation for the residential plots.

According to the amended IDLR, a CDA officer after 10 years service and a deputationist after one year service in the civic body were entitled for a plot.

The employees from BPS-1 to BPS-16 were eligible for the allotment after completion of eight years service in the CDA.

In June 2012, when the CDA started allotment of 109 plots to the senior officers including the deputationists the retired and serving officers and the CDA employees challenged the balloting in the IHC.

Hafiz Arfat Ahmed Chaudhry, counsel for the retired officers, adopted before the court that his clients had legitimate expectation to get a respectable shelter for their families at the fag end of their lives.

But the CDA by initiating the process of allotment of plots in favour of deputationists had painfully shattered their dreams, he said.

His contention was that former officers who spent over three decades in the CDA and were given small size plots in the sectors like G-7, G-6, G-8 and G-9.

But in case of deputationists they were being given bigger size plots in posh sectors, though they had rendered less than one year service in the civic body.

According to him, the matter of allotment of plots to the retired CDA employees was placed before the CDA board and it was deferred till the opening of new residential sectors.

The CDA has grossly violated the precondition/its own standard operating procedure (SOP) and did not even circulate the list of the nominees of the plots among its employees inviting objections thereon, the counsel said.

The petition asserted that initially, it was compulsory for a deputationist to serve CDA for continuous three years to become eligible for a plot but this period was drastically reduced from three to two years and then one year and at present deputationists were being allotted plots on completing only six months service in the CDA.

The petition requested the court to declare the allotments to deputationists illegal.

The petition also sought plots for ex-CDA officers who retired before the allotment policy was evolved.

The court after hearing the arguments set aside the balloting of plots to 109 CDA officers.

It also cancelled the offer letters issued to the officers for the allotment of the plots in sector I-8.

Justice Siddiqui directed the CDA chairman to evolve new policy for the allotment.