When the judges decided to verify the claim, they found that clicking the link on the website led to a page stating, “Oops, you’ve found a dead link”.
Inefficiency on behalf of the city managers Thursday left the Capital Development Authority’s lawyer red-faced in the Supreme Court on Thursday. The bench was hearing a case regarding non-conforming use of residential units and unlawful road closures across Islamabad.
On February 24, a three-member apex court bench — headed by Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja — directed the CDA to establish a dedicated complaint centre so that citizens could easily inform the civic agency about misuse of residential units in their proximity.
During Thursday’s hearing, the court was informed that the cell had been established in line with directions of the court” and that citizens could launch complaints just by clicking a link available on CDA’s official website.
But when the judges decided to verify the claim, they found that clicking the link on the website led to a page stating, “Oops, you’ve found a dead link”.
“It is tantamount to…misguiding the court,” observed Justice Khawaja. The court decided to summon the head of the CDA’s human resource department, who later informed the court that it was because of a technical error. The CDA was directed to address the “technical error” by March 17 — the date of the next hearing.
The bench was hearing an appeal filed by a private consultant, Bridge Factor (Pvt) Ltd, who had moved the Supreme Court against the Islamabad High Court (IHC)’s rejection of its petition against a CDA notice served on the firm for running its business out of a residential unit in sector F-7.
Over the issue of road closures, the CDA counsel informed the court that three foreign embassies — Nepal, South Africa and Brazil — had voluntarily removed barricades from outside their respective premises, while the representatives of six other embassies including Sweden, Austria, and Hungary, had sought more time to remove barricades around their embassies.
The counsel said that road closures or security walls outside some sensitive buildings including office of sensitive organisations, imambargahs, schools and churches could not be removed for security reasons.
“The CDA should [ensure] sufficient security arrangements around these buildings, but private individuals and entities must not be allowed to take the law in their hands by closing footpaths, streets or roads,” Justice Khawaja observed.
He directed the CDA to expedite correspondence with foreign missions for early removal of barricades.
“Instead of giving more time, foreign missions should be asked [exactly] how much time they need to remove hurdles to determine a cut-off date,” Khawaja suggested.
On January 26, the CDA submitted a 220-page report to the SC which detailed residential units in the city which are being used for commercial purposes and as foreign missions, and all roads and streets closed for security reasons.
The CDA admitted that “no approval of any kind has been sought from the CDA before some 216 roads, streets and footpaths in Islamabad were closed for the general public under the guise of security”.
After the court directed the CDA to remove these hurdles, during the last hearing, the CDA informed the court that it had removed over 100 blockages since the order.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 13th, 2015.
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