Gun Club case: Club denied extra time, but judgement withheld

SC rejects defence arguments, pulls-up CDA over role; CDA blames sports board.

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday reserved its judgment on the legal status of the Islamabad Gun Club after prosecution and defence lawyers concluded their arguments.

A three-member bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Gulzar Ahmed and Sheikh Azmat Saeed was hearing the case.

During the previous hearing, the bench had questioned how an elite club could be constructed on government land without any legal cover. On October 4, 2011, the apex court took suo motu notice on a news report regarding allotment of 72 acres of land worth billions of rupees to the Gun Club at the reduced rate of Rs10 million per acre.

The club was originally built on Pakistan Sport Board (PSB) land and was established on November 18, 2002 through the Gun Club Resolution 2002, which was subsequently notified by the now-devolved Ministry of Sports, Culture and Tourism.

On Wednesday, Advocate Raja Mohammad Irshad, counsel for the Gun Club, admitted that the club lacks legal legs and requested the bench to give him one month in order to give it some legal cover. He also requested the court to avoid handing it over to the Capital Development Authority (CDA), claiming that the civic agency is an inefficient institution and lacking checks and balances.

CJ Chaudhry rejected his plea and said that even the construction of the club appears to be illegal. He said that it is a failure on the part of the CDA that influential people are building on CDA land while the agency is failing to pay its employees’ salaries.

Munir Paracha, Counsel for the CDA, told the bench that after the closure of the club, people who got memberships will demand their money back. He said that after it closure, all infrastructure including the shooting range and swimming facilities will be finished, adding that the PSB is facilitating people through these facilities. Deputy Attorney General Shafi Chandio concurred, saying that the club members were not to blame and deserved compensation.

The chief justice responded, “Get the money back from those to whom it was given.”

The CDA lawyer said that the land was not even allotted to the club, but to the PSB.

Meanwhile, Justice Gulzar observed that sports facilities are already dying in the country and everything has gotten privatised. He observed that such clubs only facilitate the entertainment of the children of rich people, while the common man is left without access to any facilities.

Justice Saeed concluded, “Any building or infrastructure built on state land with state funds is the state’s property. Private parties should entertain themselves with their own money.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2013.