The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday directed Member Planning of Capital Development Authority (CDA) to fulfil obligation towards retrieving football ground land in Sector F-8, Islamabad, encroached upon by the lawyers. A four-member larger bench headed by Chief Justice IHC Athar Minallah and comprised Justice Aamer Farooq, Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb, after hearing the matter deferred the proceedings until April 29.
During the hearing, the member planning of Capital Development Authority (CDA) appeared before the court in person. Justice Aamer Farooq remarked that CDA is not fulfilling its duties in this connection. The Chief Justice directed the CDA to perform its duties as per law. The court noted that despite notices, representatives of Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and Islamabad Bar Council (IBC) have not appeared.
In February last year, the Supreme Court of Pakistan took suo motu notice of the construction of chambers by the district courts lawyers on the football ground. However, after keeping the matter pending for about 10 months, the apex court referred the matter to the IHC in December 2018. Former office-bearers of the District Bar Association (DBA) Islamabad had divided the football ground into five blocks and named them after themselves. One of the blocks was named after Naveed Malik, an ex-president of the association, while the others were named after former secretary Chaudhry Naseer, vice president Shakeel Awan, joint secretary Dilawar Khan and the fifth as Shuhada Block.
The encroachment started on the basis of a judicial order the lawyers had obtained from a civil judge in 2013. However, despite resistance by the traders of F-8, the CDA demolished about 30 under construction chambers the same year. But almost half of the plots occupied by lawyers could not be retrieved. There was even a clash between the lawyers and traders which forced the police to move an application with a court to seal the ground. In 2018, a stay order was issued by a senior civil judge restraining the CDA from interfering in the construction of the chambers on the public ground.
In addition to the football ground, the lawyers have also constructed chambers on footpaths, litigants' sitting area and at every open space available in front of courtrooms as well as in the surrounding of the district courts. Recently, the lawyers constructed chambers in the already narrowed corridors of the district courts, in front of the judges' chambers and even inside the parent-children meeting hall. After demolition of some of the chambers by the CDA, the lawyers staged a protest and detained about 20 judges inside courtrooms on December 21. They not only reconstructed the demolished chambers but also increased the number of the unauthorised chambers.
The Special Branch of the police declared the premises insecure due to mushroom growth of the chambers. The CDA has included the football ground among the encroached amenity plots, a list of which has already been submitted to the apex court and the IHC. In this matter, a CDA report said that the lawyers had also encroached upon state land worth millions of rupees that was retrieved after removing a restaurant. The CDA in its report dated December 19, 2017 said that the lawyers were constructing chambers on a public ground.