Judicial interference: High court offers legal hope to victims of PIDC housing ‘scam’

President and member committee allegedly elected in false elections.

KARACHI: The employees of the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) have been offered hope as the Sindh High Court has interposed in the alleged property usurpation case - a watershed moment for the exposition of the alleged corruption in the affairs of cooperative housing societies.

Last month, the court issued non-bailable arrest warrants for the former administrator of the PIDC Employees Multipurpose Cooperative Housing Society in an ongoing litigation against the supersession of the housing society and the embezzlement of its funds by Sindh cooperative department officials. The case will now be heard by the bench on April 8.

"In spite of the order passed by this court, the former administrator of the society, Abdul Fattah Jamali, is not in attendance," observed the two-member bench, comprising Justice Zafar Ahmed Rajput and Justice Irfan Saadat Khan. "Let non-bailable warrants be issued against him to be served through the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto district SSP."

In 1971, over 450 employees of the PIDC decided to set up a cooperative housing society over 40 acres of land. For the next three decades, the employees made significant contributions for the development of the society. In 2010, however, the Sindh cooperative department superseded the elected committee to run the affairs of the society without furnishing any charges and arbitrarily appointed Jamali as the administrator. Earlier on February 28, the court directed the former administrator to appear before the court on the next hearing along with all the relevant records, stating that "serious allegations have been raised with regard to the affairs of the [housing] society" and added that "if he does not appear before the court, adverse inference would be drawn against him." This happened as the 'illegally' removed and otherwise elected office-bearers of the housing society approached the Sindh High Court.

The high court had earlier directed the provincial cooperative department on April 30, 2013, to hold an election for the post of president. They maintained that the election officer, Muneer Baig, who was appointed by the Sindh cooperative societies' registrar on July 10, 2013, had prepared a fake member list. These fake members then unanimously elected a new president and a 12-member managing committee.

In his letter to the Sindh cooperative societies' registrar, dated August 26, 2013, Baig accepted that the election and annual general meeting of the housing society was deferred to a later date because the quorum as per registered bylaws was not complete on the given date and time.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 7^th, 2014.