CDA rejects Hifzur Rehman as chief legal adviser

Senior law official says the position does not exist, post of legal adviser has already been filled

ISLAMABAD: The CDA has pushed back against a move by the government to unilaterally install a blue-eyed legal adviser at the authority.

The law ministry had sent Hifzur Rehman Syed to the Capital Development Authority (CDA) as the chief legal adviser of the body.

However, on Wednesday, the CDA Law Deputy Director General Najma Azhar wrote a letter to the Law and Justice Division stating that the authority did not have any post or position for a ‘chief legal adviser’ nor had the CDA forwarded any recommendations, as required by the law ministry’s policies of June 2015 regarding appointment of legal advisers.

Azhar further stated that Rehman had himself resigned from his previous post of legal adviser in the civic body on April 28, 2017.

He was replaced by Kashif Ali Malik on June 2, 2017, and the move was ratified by CDA’s Board the same month.

“Due to the unavailability of the CDA chairman, the CDA Board is not functioning, therefore, the services of Rehman for the post of ‘Chief Legal Advisor’ cannot be considered and not otherwise required by the CDA,” DDG Azhar further stated in the letter.

Rehman is the son of senior lawyer SA Rehman, a close friend of the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Law Barrister Zafarullah Khan.

After Rehman resigned in April 2017, there were rumours that he may be appointed as the chairman of Islamabad’s Drug Court. However, the move was blocked by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) lawyers’ forum, who wanted to install their own man in the post.

After a lapse of nine months, the law ministry sent Rehman back to the CDA with additional powers and authority.

However, the law division seems to have come unstuck with a headless CDA.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 18^th, 2018.