ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has been urged to direct the development authorities in the provinces to prepare master plans of all the big cities, and strictly adhere to them for future expansion.
The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), on Friday, submitted a report on cooperative housing societies, saying there were 667 cooperative housing societies, and recommended probe against 279.
The report suggested that the development authorities and other regulators may kindly be directed to introduce one-window operation for the approval of the housing projects with the strict timelines for the holding of the DPDCs' meetings and for the decision on the application of the developers.
The Land Sub-Division Rules framed by the provinces should be reviewed and amended suitably.
All the Development Authorities and Regulators also be directed to convene the meeting of the concerned committees to decide the registration cases of the private schemes, which are pending with them for scrutiny or for any other verification activity, the FIA report proposed.
The Additional Attorney General on 2nd June, 2020 had sought time, so that the federal and the provincial investigating authorities can confer on how the cases of delinquency in cooperative housing societies in the provinces may be investigated.
The FIA report further recommended that a committee comprising the registrars of all the cooperative departments of the provinces, representatives of the provincial law departments and representative of the Federal Ministry of Law and Justice may kindly be constituted to review the cooperative law in the light of the JITs' reports with a view to suggesting suitable and appropriate amendments in the law.
The sale proprietor firms and the firms registered under the Partnership Act should be banned to launch any housing project. Instead, the companies registered under the Companies Act, 2017, should only be allowed to engage in the development activities in the housing sector.
The report recommended that the federal government may kindly be directed to issue notification for the enforcement of Section 456 of the Companies Act, 2017, immediately, to regulate the advances received from public for real estate project by the companies.
A centralised agency of provincial or federal level, may be established to look after regulatory affairs of private and cooperative housing societies, which should also have investigative power for such matters and in order to avoid fraud, overbooking, and to ensure proper collection of stamp and other duties, registration of sale deed of each plot with the Revenue Department, should be mandatory for every housing society.
The FIA report said that a bill for the regulation of the housing sector had been presented in the Senate, "Real Estate [Regulation & Development] Act, 2017" by Senator Mohsin Aziz.
The bill, which is under scrutiny with the Senate Committee, will cover most of the aspects.
Necessary directions may kindly be issued to initiate legal action against the delinquent housing societies/schemes as recommended by the JITs in their respective forensic audit reports.
Criminal cases/inquiries should also be registered against the public servants functioning in development authorities and other regulatory bodies, who are engaged in delaying the decision with mala fide intention regarding the issuance of the NOCs/approval of LOPs as well as the official with the connivance of whom the illegal schemes have been set up and sold by the developers.
Directions may kindly be issued to all the development authorities/regulatory bodies to file formal complaints to the law enforcement agencies for immediate registration of cases against the housing societies, who had never applied for the registration and who are engaged in the establishment/development/marketing of housing projects in various cities of Pakistan.
The regulatory authorities/bodies should also be directed to ensure the interest of the inhabitants of the colonized illegal housing societies, which have been established with the complicity of their staff.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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