Common practice?: Deputationists in CDA continue to seek plots

2013 IHC ruling bars officers from doing so


Danish Hussain October 24, 2014

ISLAMABAD:


For some officers in the capital’s civic agency, the most important aspect of the job is working to get luxury plots at cut-rate prices.


Officers working on deputation in the Capital Development Authority (CDA) continue to make ‘efforts’ to get residential plots allotted to them, despite a court order explicitly barring the practice.

Two CDA board members, both in the civic agency on deputation, have recently moved ‘requests’ to the chairman for allotment of residential plots to them, claiming “they meet the requisite criteria”.

The officers are CDA Planning and Design Member Waseem Ahmad Khan, a BS-20 officer, and CDA Finance Member Sher Bahadur Arbab, a BS-21 officer. Both men have served in CDA for one-year.

Legal precedent

On March 11, 2013, the Islamabad High Court had ruled that the deputationists were not entitled to residential plots.

Former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf had also imposed a ban on allotting residential plots to deputationists in the CDA.

Try anyway

In the recent past, several deputationists in the CDA have earned bad names for themselves and the civic agency after violating and manipulating rules to get cut-rate residential plots for their ‘services’.

First among equals

Deputationists in the CDA were declared eligible for allotment of residential plots in 2005 during the tenure of former chairman Kamran Lashari — himself a deputationist. The Islamabad Land Disposal Regulation (ILDR) was amended and a sub-clause inserted, giving deputationists status equivalent to permanent CDA employees. According to the amended clause, officers on deputation would be eligible for residential plots after one-year of service in the CDA. In light of the amended clause, several dozen deputationists got plots in posh residential sectors.

The IHC verdict

By the end of 2012, around 109 CDA officers including 23 deputationists managed to get allotment letters for residential plots under the amended ILDR. Some retired and serving CDA officers challenged the move in the Islamabad High Court, maintaining that regular CDA employees had been given small plots in undeveloped sectors, while deputationists were given large plots in fully-developed sectors.

The court decided in favour of the petitioners, terming the amendment to the ILDR unconstitutional. The court had then noted that considering a deputationist equivalent to a permanent employee was against the constitution and violated the fundamental rights of regular CDA employees.

Arbab confirmed that he had requested the allotment of a residential plot. When informed him about the IHC verdict in this regard, Arbab said he had been informed that a divisional IHC bench had set aside the decision.

“It is for the CDA chairman to decide whether or not the rules allow for the allotment of a plot to me,” Arbab said. He said that he would have no objection if his request was turned down by the authority.

Khan could not be contacted for comment despite repeated attempts on his cell phone.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24th, 2014.

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