ISLAMABAD, March 4: A large number of government employees are still waiting Lahore High Court, Rawalpindi Bench’s, decision with regard to the allotment of 481 plots in I-8 sector by the Benazir government in 1996, Dawn has learnt.

These plots were allotted to the government officials through Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation (FGEHF) on the basis of political affiliations by the then civil government in violation of rules, the effected persons said.

The housing foundation was set up in 1996 with the objective to allot residential plots to the federal government employees, and it successfully completed the first two phases of the task assigned to it, one of the affected persons said.

He said, initially, it had been decided by the FGEHF that it would prepare a seniority list of the applicants on the basis of their date of birth. However, during the allotment of 481 plots in phase-II extension, only a selected lot of employees was favoured, thus, depriving the deserving persons of their right, he added.

Thereafter, the affected employees of the federal government challenged the allotment in the LHC, Rawalpindi bench, in 1997.

As the case is still pending, the writ petitioners, mainly comprising senior government officials, both serving and retired, are hoping that in the end they will be given their legal share in the new allotments the FGEHF is planning in the near future.

However, they are suspecting that with the new civil government in place, there may be new political wranglings to accommodate favourites in the new allotments.

Another affected person said the then FGEHF director- general, Sarshar Malik, in a letter to the CDA, has mentioned that political secretary of the then prime minister ordered the allotment of these plots to the chosen few.

Some of the people, who had been allotted these plots, were also not regular government servants, thus violating one of the basic preconditions to apply for a plot, he said.

He claimed that, according to the latest statistics, the FGEHF still had 855 plots in I-8 sector, which the government was planning to allot to its favourites.

When contacted, the FGEHF director administration said since the case was with the LHC, therefore, “I can’t comment on it”.