One Constitution Avenue: FIA gives clean chit to all accused

Fact-finding report drops all charges, says past investigations ignored the availability of evidence

ISLAMABAD: Even though the land lease of the multi-storey project being built on Constitution Avenue remains cancelled for committing various building and layout plan violations, the top investigation agency of the country has handed a clean chit to former top officials of the civic body and the project’s builder.

While the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had nominated these individuals in its inquiry, it failed to find sufficient evidence to charge any of them.



In the FIA fact-finding report, prepared by FIA Cyber Crime Director Muhammad Shoaib and submitted to the Supreme Court by the Additional Attorney General Nayyar Rizvi, the investigation agency dropped all charges against the accused in the scandal and has completely rejected its previous investigation in the matter.

On December 30, 2010, a source report was received by FIA Crime Wing director which alleged fraud in the One Constitution Avenue project in the capital.

An inquiry was conducted on January 4, 2011. After some stops and restarts on account of the inquiry being challenged in the court — the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had finally granted the investigation agency conditional permission to resume its inquiry in April 2017. By then, the task was assigned to an inquiry team based in Lahore on March 28, 2017.

The team recommended that a first information report (FIR) be registered against nine accused in the case including the chief executive officer of the project’s builder BNP Private Limited, former Capital Development Authority (CDA) chairman Kamran Lashari, former CDA Planning member Brigadier (retd) Nusrat, ex-CDA finance member Kamran Qureshi, former CDA Administration member Shaukat Mohmand, ex-CDA Engineering member Moin Kakakhel, former CDA legal advisor Rai Nawaz Kharral, former CDA Estate Management director Habibur Rehman and former Project Management Office director Faisal Awan.

Allegations

Major allegations against the accused in the case included a loss of Rs25 billion caused to the government exchequer by way of committing fraud, forgery, criminal breach of trust, impersonation and misuse of official position. The CDA was accused of allowing a change in the city’s master plan; the allowing height of hotel to increase from six stories to unlimited, with the approval of the cabinet.

The CDA was also accused of rescheduling the project twice, allegedly, with the active connivance of CDA officials, BNP Group was renamed as BNP Private Limited.

Another allegation included the signing of lease deed instead of the lease agreement and that the lease deed was registered with the rent controller instead of Islamabad’s sub-registrar with mala fide intentions.

The civic body was also accused of failing to obtain bank guarantee for the remaining 85 per cent of the value of the plot from BNP Private Limited to secure the monetary interest of CDA. The bank guarantee equivalent to only one instalment was allegedly obtained and that too later returned.

No evidence

The FIA’s inquiry report states that “there is no evidence on the case file regarding the loss of Rs25 billion to the government exchequer.”

“During cross-examination, the investigation team could not produce any evidence to substantiate this allegation,” the report read.

Further, it said that there is no “clarity in the investigation case file and presented CDA documents regarding luxury apartments versus serviced apartments.”

It notes that section 2.6 of the lease deed had authorised BNP Private Limited to sub-lease its rights to any third party without seeking any prior notice or permission from the CDA.

Moreover, the report noted that failure or delays in building a tower for the hotel were due to height restrictions imposed by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

“On November 2, 2016, the CAA gave No-Objection Certificate (NOC) for the construction of the hotel with a restricted height of 331 feet, whereas, by that time, the lease deed was already cancelled,” the report noted.



Referring to multiple rescheduling of the project, the report explained that the CDA Board had approved the second reschedule because the builders had been unable to secure the NOC from CAA.

On the matter of registering the lease deed with the rent controller instead of the sub-registrar, the report explained that the deed could only be registered with sub-registrar once the price for the land has been paid in full and a completion certificate has been obtained. These would have been effective in 2020 as per the lease deed.

Referring to the previous investigation carried out by the FIA, the report noted that the “investigation team was ignorant of the fact that in June 1997, the cabinet approved alteration in the Master Plan of Islamabad to the extent to provide for a five-star hotel, shopping malls etc, adjacent to the Convention Centre and also allowed relaxation in the use of land in Zone III to accommodate a hotel and shopping mall under ICT Zoning Regulation 1992.”

Exonerating all accused, the FIA report noted, “During cross-examination, the accused presented various documentary evidence to prove their innocence. The investigation team members did not rebut such evidence but showed their ignorance to the fact that such evidence was available.”

It concluded that the investigation team could not substantiate allegations in case FIR number 10/2017. 

Published in The Express Tribune, September 15^th, 2018.