Housing society case: Civic agency, others put on notice

Court orders maintenance of status quo.


Rizwan Shehzad May 23, 2016
Court orders maintenance of status quo. DESIGN: FAIZAN DAWOOD.

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday issued notices to the capital’s civic agency and others on a petition seeking cancellation of a no-objection certificate (NOC) issued to a housing society.

The IHC judge Athar Minallah put the Capital Development Authority (CDA), the Civilian Employees Cooperative Housing Society (CECHS) president and a woman, Yasmin Fatima, on notice, while taking up a petition against “illegal” division of a 1,000 square yard plot in phase-I of the Soan Gardens Housing Scheme.

While directing to maintain status quo in the case, the court directed the respondents to submit replies.

Petitioner, Imran Amjad, through his counsel Zaheeruddin Usmani has requested the court to declare the splitting up of the plot illegal, and directing the CDA to cancel the housing society’s NOC, and imposition of an “exemplary penalty” on the respondents.

The court also accepted the petitioner’s request restraining the respondents from carrying out construction on the plot.

The petitioner said that he was a member of the CECHS since 1989 and lived on a plot measuring 1,000 square yards in Soan Garden, but the CECHS illegally divided the plot into four plots measuring 250 sq yards each.

He said that Fatima had started construction on one of the divided plots.

Usmani said that the CECHS’s master plan showed that all plots in the locality were 1,000 square yards and construction on the divided plots was in violation of the CDA rules and the master plan.

The CDA’s Building Control Regulations 2005 states that “only one bifurcation or sub-division of plots will be allowed in respect of plots measuring 1,000 sq yards and the divided portion should not be less than 500 sq yards.”

It adds that the sub-division will, however, be allowed on the condition that only one living unit will be permitted to be constructed on each portion.

Usmani, however, said that the respondents have divided the area into four plots, while adversely affecting the rights of the petitioner.

Because of the act, he added, his plot will lose its value and look.

Usmani said that the CECHS was legally bound to implement the rules and the respondents were asked to refrain from their “illegal acts” but they refused to do so.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24th, 2016.

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