Director and deputy director were allegedly on the take to swap low-cost plots with expensive ones. PHOTO: FILE
The two are gazetted officers who had passed the Commission of Superior Services (CSS) exam of the Federal Public Services Commission.
Irfanullah Khan, an officer in basic pay scale grade (BPS) 18 in the elite Foreign Services Group, was working in the CDA as Land director on a current charge basis.
Rana Farhan, a BPS-17 officer of the Information Group, was posted in Land and Rehabilitation Directorate as a deputy director on a look-after basis.
Both officers have been asked to relinquish their charge and report to the human resource department (HRD) of CDA.
Earlier, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) Chairman Anser Aziz had cancelled the allotment of over a 100 plots which had been allegedly allotted through ‘corrigendum’ over the past few months, apart from imposing a ban on allotments through this process.
“When an allottee faced a physical problem with plots, such as legal obstruction or some other technical reasons, a revised allotment is made which is known as corrigendum,” a CDA official in Land Directorate explained to The Express Tribune.
CDA officials claimed that the land directorate had changed the locations of plots from less valuable locations and sectors to relatively more expensive locations, thereby benefiting the allottees by millions of rupees through mutual understanding in each case.
All was being done by land directorate officials after taking huge bribes for each case from allottees, some officials stated.
It is alleged that the directorate had recently accommodated a Chak Shahzad property dealer whose three plots were shifted from Sector I-12, where a plot is priced around Rs2.5 million, to Chak Shahzad, where a plot of the same size is worth Rs15 million.
Irfanullah, working on deputation from the Foreign Services Group, had served as a staff officer for Capital Administration and Development Division Minister Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry before joining the Land Directorate.
The directorate has been in the headlines over the past year for alleged corruption. In August, it allotted plots to affected people in Sectors I-11 and I-12 by choice, as a plot worth Rs2.5 million in Sector I-12 cost Rs6 million in Sector I-11.
CDA officials claimed that the massive corruption took place in getting plots in Sector I-11, as no criteria were adopted for differentiating between Sectors I-12 and I-11.
“Those who gave money to corrupt land directorate officials were accommodated in Sector I-11, and those who did not grease officials’ palms were allotted plots in Sector I-12,” a CDA official alleged.
Anti-encroachment drive
CDA Member Estate Khsushal Khan was injured on Monday as he led an anti-encroachment operation to demolish illegal structures built over the authority’s land in Sinyari Village at the foot of the Margalla Hills.
When the CDA operation team supervised by Member Estate Khushal and CDA Environment Wing Director General Sannaullah Aman along with police and district administration officers reached the spot to conduct the operation, the villagers put up stiff resistance and pelted the CDA team with stones.
Khushal and many employees of CDA were injured in the hail of stones but continued the operation. The authority has filed cases against the local people for injuring its officers and staff.
According to CDA statement, large contingents of Islamabad police and officers of district administration were also present.
At least 150 officials of Enforcement Directorate, supported by heavy machinery from the Machinery Pool Organization (MPO), participated in the operation.
A fencing wall around 15 kanals of land, six newly constructed structures, rooms and other illegal constructions were completely demolished.
Mayor Aziz appreciated the operation against illegal constructions and encroachment and retrieving land worth millions of rupees.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 19th, 2017.
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