CDA’s Chairperson Imtiaz Inayat Elahi on Friday told the Supreme Court that the authority had started a campaign to take possession of the remaining land in the adjoining area of the village. The total area spreading over 2,000 acres in Malpur was purchased by CDA in 1960.
Elahi told the court that the authority was going to develop this part of the acquired land into a wood-land to sustain the greenery of Islamabad. He said the government had allocated Rs300 million for the project.
Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday, who is part of the three-member bench headed by the Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, observed that the property worth billions of rupees belonging to CDA in G-11 and G-12 sectors was also under unauthorised possession. “Why has the authority not taken back that land from (influential) occupants,” Justice Ramday asked CDA Chairman Imtiaz Inayat Elahi.
Confessing to the delay in retrieving land, Elahi said 20,000 acres of land was yet to be taken back from the occupants. “Mr Elahi you don’t know how much ‘bhatta’ (bribe) each police station is receiving to protect the land mafia. CDA has become helpless in front of the MNAs and senators working in the background,” Justice Ramday said.
Earlier, the SC took suo motu notice on a letter sent by Imran Khan, chairperson Tehrik-i-Insaf, to the Chief Justice of Pakistan.
“Senator Nayyar Hussain Bokhari has occupied 80 kanals of land near Malpur village that falls in the National Park area,” the letter said. CDA officials refuted the statement before the court and said that the land occupied by the senator was not part of the park land area.
Furthermore, the civic body recently allowed construction in Zone-III, an area falling in the National Park area where construction is prohibited. CDA officials claimed that some of the Zone-III area was also located outside the jurisdiction of the National Park area.
Sources inside the authority told The Express Tribune that in a bid to accommodate certain influential personalities, CDA was misinterpreting SC’s order of 2008. In that ruling, the owners were allowed reasonable construction in Zone-IV area of the capital city.
The entire area of Zone-III and Zone-IV falls in the National Park area, a source in the Estate Directorate of CDA said. “The ICT zoning regulations of 1992 restrict any kind of construction in the aforesaid zones. The rules were framed to maintain the greenery of Islamabad.”
The new move of the civic body is to serve the vested interests of a few politicians and would destroy the green image of Islamabad, he added.
On the other hand, Senator Bokhari through his lawyer asked the court to exclude his name from the case because he was not an occupant of CDA land in Malpur village. Justice Ramday remarked that the senator was a prominent person, therefore media reports and the letter written by Imran Khan mentioned his name. “However, the court did not hold the senator for the occupation,” Justice Ramday said.
Elahi told the court that in the early 1960s the civic body acquired a total of 75,000 acres of land. “Out of these, CDA had already acquired and developed around 55,000 acres of land,” he said.
The court in its written order held that due to negligence on the part of CDA, the possession of the acquired land could not be taken on time due to which the issue had become complicated. The court order said that there were many cases pending against CDA in the courts that revealed that authority hired private firms and builders to take back the possession of its land while paying huge amounts from the public exchequer. The court disposed off the case.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 15th, 2011.
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