ISLAMABAD, May 29: Justice Noorul Haq N. Qureshi of Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday issued another warrant for the arrest of chairman Capital Development Authority (CDA) on a contempt of court plea filed in a land compensation case.

The same court on May 11 had also issued a bailable arrest warrant for Farkhand Iqbal and two senior officials of the CDA planning directorate. On Tuesday, Justice Qureshi issued the arrest warrant for Mr Iqbal, director land Capt (retired) Fariduddin and CDA deputy commissioner Najeeb Aslam when they did not appear in the court along with their counsel during the hearing of a contempt of court plea filed by a villager of Sector D-13 in a land compensation case.

The judge observed that on the last date of hearing, Barrister Masroor Shah, the CDA legal adviser, had assured the court of the attendance of the director land in order to explain the implementation of the court decision. The order said: “Today, nobody is in attendance, therefore, finding no other way to procure the attendance of the contemnors, office is directed to issue their bailable warrants in the sum of Rs20,000 bonds for procuring their attendance in court and for submitting their elaborate reply as to why they have not implemented the decision of the court.”

It added: “It transpires that initially notice was issued on April 30, 2009, but the authority for different reasons sought adjournment and also somewhere undertook to verify the position but no reply was submitted to the court.”

Asad Abbas Kazmi in his petition requested the court for contempt of court proceedings against the CDA chairman and other officials for not implementing the IHC order of February 10, 2009, in which the civic agency had been directed to compensate the D-13 affected people in a couple of months.

The court in February 2009 had directed the authority to invite applications for allotment of plots in lieu of compensation within 15 days and complete the allotment process in two months.

Raja Inam Amin Minhas, the petitioner’s counsel, told the court that the CDA acquired 21,723 kanals for the sector in revenue estates of Bheka Fateh Baksh, Siri Saral, Shah Allah Ditta, Pind Sangryal, Dhreah Mori and Thalla Syedan in the year 2007 and announced the award for Rs0.8 million per kanal.

Due to limited financial resources, the authority offered a land-sharing formula to the affected villagers against their land but the villagers were still waiting for the developed plots. The authority had promised to allot them one kanal developed plot for four kanals raw land.

He said the petitioner filed the contempt of court plea on April 25, 2009, but after lapse of more than three years the civic body had not implemented the order.

When contacted, CDA chief legal adviser Barrister Masroor Shah told Dawn that the matter of land compensation was in process and it would take some time. He, however, said on the next date of hearing, the CDA counsel and the relevant director would apprise the court of the factual position.