The civic agency officials, however, sought a week’s time to consult its legal department about the repercussions of the new compensation formula of land sharing in lieu of their land that were acquired in 2010 for developing Sectors I-17 and H-16.
The issue came under discussion at a meeting of the National Assembly’s standing committee on Cabinet Secretariat at the Parliament House on Friday.
The committee, chaired by Rana Hayat Khan, discussed in detail, delay in payment of Rs13 billion to the affected land owners.
At the time of the announcement of the award, it was decided that the affected locals would be given cash compensation. However, the CDA has yet to materialise its promise.
A group of affected locals, who also attended the proceedings of the committee, contended that they were ready to surrender possession of their land against the land sharing formula. The CDA was of the view that it does not have funds to pay cash compensation.
Under the proposed land sharing formula alternative plots will be provided to the affected owners at the same sectors against their acquired land.
But the CDA has contended that it cannot change the mode of compensation already decided while announcing award of these sectors.
“We will have to consider the legal repercussions of changing the mode of compensation,” deputy director-general (Land) Nadeem Abro informed the committee. He further said that the authority would seek help from its legal department if the authority could deviate from the already settled compensation payment mode.
The villagers in 2010 had moved the Lahore High Court, Rawalpindi bench, over the issue of non-payment of compensation by the CDA. The LHC ordered the civic agency to give compensation to the villagers.
In 2012, the locals moved a contempt petition against the CDA at the Islamabad High Court for not complying with the LHC orders. A single-judge bench of the IHC also directed the CDA to pay the long overdue compensation to the land owners.
In the face of paucity of funds, the CDA in response suggested the court several options. However, neither the locals nor the court approved any of the options.
Consequently, as a last resort the CDA contended that it could not pay compensation but it could denotify the land it had acquired earlier, which was turned down by the locals.
The committee decided to hold another meeting over the issue next week to finalise the mode of payment.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 27th, 2014.
1714024018-0/ModiLara-(1)1714024018-0-270x192.webp)
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ