Violation of SC’s orders: CDA caves in, takes back 200 allotments

Lower staff members started protesting after allotments of plots to officers in I-8.

ISLAMABAD:

The allotments of 200 residential plots in the posh sector I-8 to senior officials of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) will be cancelled. This assurance was made by CDA Chairperson Farkhand Iqbal to hundreds of protesting employees here on Thursday.

The ballots for the allotments were held secretly in violation of Supreme Court’s (SC) orders, which prompted protest from the lower staff. Thousands of CDA employees gathered at the CDA headquarters on a call by the CDA Mazdoor Union and CDA Employees Federation and closed the office blocks to protest the allotments of plots to senior officers, including those on deputation.

According to the protesters, the venue of balloting was shifted twice from Convention Centre to Islamabad Club and later to PC hotel in Rawalpindi after they gathered at the Convention Centre to foil the attempt.

The employees raised slogans against the double standards, where the officers were allotted plots but the lower staff members were denied the facility on the pretext of stay orders and the matter being sub judice in the SC.

CDA Mazdoor Union General Secretary Chaudhry Yasin in a press conference welcomed the move. He said that the CDA authorities have not yet allotted 2,000 approved plots to lower staff members. The allotments in I-8 thus infuriated the lower staff members who decided to protest, he said.

CDA Employees Federation General Secretary said they had demanded that the CDA chief either cancel the balloting or extend the same facility to lower staff members. He quoted the chairperson as saying that any such act would be in violation of the court’s directive and advised the employees to await the court’s decision.

The matter of allotments of about 4,000 CDA plots is pending before the Supreme Court. It is a common practice for officers working in the civic body — even those on deputation — to get lucrative plots in different CDA schemes.

There are also a number of such cases pending in the Islamabad High Court where top CDA officials allegedly succeeded in getting plots despite the SC’s ban. IHC is also hearing a case of former CDA Chairperson and the incumbent Capital Administration and Development Division Secretary Imtiaz Inayat Elahi, who allegedly got a plot in sector I-8 despite the ban.

*With input from APP

Published In The Express Tribune, June 22^nd, 2012.