Refurbishment charges: Lawyer to brief DHA residents on lawsuit

Resident association filed case to protest ‘maintenance’ tax they claim they pay CBC already.

KARACHI: The lawyer for Defence Society Residents Association (DSRA) will meet members and brief them on the case they have filed against refurbishment charges on Sunday.

According to a notice published in daily Dawn, Dr Farogh Naseem, DSRA’s legal counsel, will meet Defence Housing Authority (DHA) residents on Sunday, January 2, at 3:30 pm at Defence Central Library.

He will be addressing the impression that the interim order passed by a Sindh High Court (SHC) bench about the new tax has expired. “I have been asked by my clients to brief the members of DSRA about the status of the case,” said Dr Naseem.

He explained that it was routine procedure for an advocate to brief his client about stages in the litigation. This is often done by telephone but since this case involves a larger number of members, a briefing has been arranged, he said.

Barrister Sharifuddin Pirzada and Khalid Javed Khan are representing the respondent DHA during the proceedings at the Sindh High Court.

The case

The petitioners maintain that in May 2009, DHA’s governing body decided to levy arefurbishment charges in Phases I to VII at different rates, varying from Rs150 per square yard to Rs1,000 per square yard, payable in two years in four equal instalments. DHA has banned all transfers, mutations and leases until this levy is paid, they stated.

Dr Naseem said that refurbishment charges are unlawful as DHA can only levy development charges, as it has in Phase VIII. He explained that DHA, apart from being a housing society, is also a developer - it builds roads, poles, drainage in areas as well. So DHA can take money to develop an area. “But their maintenance is not DHA’s job,” the counsel contended. “This is the jurisdiction of the Cantonment Board, Clifton (CBC) and DHA plot owners already pay the CBC a yearly amount for maintenance,” he said.

Meanwhile, DHA’s counsel Khalid Javed submitted that the DSRA had approached DHA to fix the infrastructure problems in the housing society. DHA had to build the drainage system in the area because the CBC was not doing anything and his client took the project on in good faith, he argued.

DHA’s lawyer submitted that the housing society needed to levy the refurbishment charges to generate money for maintenance and renovation because it did not have enough money.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2011.