ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Wednesday issued stay orders against the balloting for allotment of the plots to the members by the Federal Government Employees Housing Authority (FGEHA) in sectors, F-14 and F-15.
A single bench of Chief Justice Athar Minallah heard the petition of 24 residents of these areas who challenged the land acquisition and its allotment by the FGEHA through Hassan Mann advocate and cited secretary Ministry of Housing, FGEHA, and Land Acquisition Collector as respondents.
They stated that the process of acquisition of land situated in the CDA sectors F-14 and F-15 for the FGEHA was started in 2015, and some of the land owners i.e. affectees successfully challenged the process of acquisition before this court inter alia on the ground that the land situated in Islamabad Capital Territory could only be acquired under the Capital Development Authority Ordinance, 1960, and not under Land Acquisition Act, 1894.
The petitioners added that intra-court appeals filed by the respondents against the abovementioned judgment passed by the single bench of this court were also dismissed by a division bench of IHC through judgment dated 25.09.2018.
They further said that therefore, the Respondent No. 2 filed appeals before the Supreme Court of Pakistan and apex court accepted the appeal vide judgment dated 08.10.2020.
They contended that during pendency of the appellate proceedings before the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation was converted into a statutory Housing Authority with all the ancillary powers including power to purchase/acquire the land.
The petitioners’ counsel argued that after becoming an Authority under the law, the Respondent No 2 promulgated Federal Government Employees Housing Authority (FGEHA) Joint Venture Projects (JVP) Regulations, 2020 in which “Land Sharing Model” was introduced through Regulation.
He stated that overwhelming majority of the affectees/land owners have not received any amount of compensation till date and only few crore rupees have been received by few affectees out of total compensation amount of around 20 billion rupees.
“There was realization in the Respondent No 2 that the amount of compensation determined in the award is inadequate and oppressive and in order to deal with the affectees/land owners in a fair and transparent manner therefore after becoming an autonomous statutory body with power to acquire and purchase land in Islamabad, the Respondent No 2 approached the affectees/land owners during pendency of the appellate proceedings before the Supreme Court of Pakistan,” said the counsel.
He added that the Respondent No 2 offered the affectees/land owners to acquire their lands in the same manner as the Capital Development Authority has acquired the adjacent sectors i.e. enhanced amount of compensation, land sharing model (land for land) as well as small plots to some of the landless affectees.
Both the sides had a number of rounds of negotiations and reached a settlement agreement in principal.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020