Supreme Court dismisses plea for cancelling land allotment for mall

Ordered the counsels for the mall to approach IHC as the case was facing delays

ISLAMABAD/ KARACHI: Supreme Court (SC) dismissed the plea for the cancellation of land allotment for Suffa Gold Mall on Friday, and ordered the counsels for Suffa Gold Mall to approach Islamabad High Court (IHC) in this regard.

A three-member bench, headed by Justice Gulzar Ahmed and comprising Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, heard the plea at SC’s Karachi registry. Islamabad Mayor Sheikh Nasir, Capital Development Authority (CDA) officials, attorney general of Pakistan (AGP) and others appeared before the court during the hearing.

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The CDA officials informed the court that the plot for Suffa Gold Mall was allotted for amenity purposes in 2009 and its lease was cancelled in 2018.

Justice Ahmed remarked that the matters involving CDA officials are in a bad state and even the new CDA chairperson doesn’t seem to be good enough. Addressing the AGP, he said that let the CDA chairperson serve only on the post of commissioner.

He remarked that he wonders how a hospital constructed on an amenity plot is being run privately. Why hasn’t been the allotment of the plot cancelled when allotment of all such other plots had been cancelled earlier, he asked.

Islamabad mayor said that he is in the same situation as the Karachi mayor and he hasn’t received any funds for past three years.

The court dismissed the plea for the cancellation of land allotment for the mall and directed the counsels for Suffa Gold Mall to approach IHC in this regard as the case was facing delays.

Park Enclave Phase II

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has decided to launch development work in Park Enclave Phase-II after boosting the development activities in its residual area of phase I.

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The CDA management has directed the formations concerned to complete codal formalities to launch development work in Park Enclave Phase-II.

In this context, CDA management has directed the concerned formations to complete codal formalities, formulate plans and design for the project within three months so that development work could be launched in the phase-II of the Park Enclave.

The CDA board has further directed that in the meantime other departments concerned including Islamabad Capital Territory Administration (ICTA) and others should also be taken on board to resolve administrative and other technical issues pertaining to Park Enclave-II. It has been also directed that in the first phase residential area of the project would be developed, so that allottees be handed over the possession of their plots and later on commercial area would be developed so that commercial plots be auctioned to facilitate the allottess of the project.

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Meanwhile, CDA Board has approved the revised the schedule, proportionately extend by one year, for allottees of Park Enclave phase-II. However, transfer of plots will be made on last payable amount and as per existing rules.

CDA launched Park Enclave Scheme, Phase-II, Block-A, in year 2016 and 300 residential plots measuring one kanal for Rs41,000 per square yard through open manual balloting.  However, due to missing priorities, development activities could not be initiated. On the other hand, the allottees were persistently requested for handing over possession of their plots.

After taking up different stalled projects, present management has started development activities on many projects, many are in pipeline and on several projects work would be launched soon as fulfillment of codel formalities is at final stages. Gradually and steadily development activities in the city are now gaining momentum.

CDA has extended the deadline by one more year more to deposit payments to the allottees of the Park Enclave II and rescheduled the instalments.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 27^th, 2019.