ISLAMABAD: While the Capital Development Authority (CDA) is censured by the superior judiciary for its failure to protect state land from encroachers, lawyers associated with the Islamabad Bar Association (IBA) seem all set to encroach upon a choice piece of land in Sector F-8.

The plot in question was allocated for a football ground, but a portion of it has already been appropriated by lawyers who have built chambers there. Now, fresh construction is planned on another section of what remains of the football ground.

When Dawn visited the site on Sunday, chalk powder lines had been drawn on the ground and a fresh pile of construction material was lying nearby.

Although CDA planned to carry out an operation against the illegal construction on Friday, the action was put off, ostensibly under pressure from the legal community.

“I would say the Supreme Court should intervene in the matter of the F-8 football ground; why should citizens be deprived of this facility? Why are lawyers encroaching upon a public ground,” said Fouzia Arshad, chairperson of Union Council (UC) 28.

Bar association president says lawyers forced to build chambers due to govt’s failure to provide alternative

She said that after receiving information about the fresh encroachment, she pleaded the case with the mayor, the chief officer of the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) and other concerned officials, but to no avail.

“It is astonishing that CDA happily takes action against vendors and push-cart handlers, but when it come to encroachments by lawyers, the CDA turns its back on the issue,” she said, adding that if no action was taken, the people of her UC would be forced to stage a protest to press for their rights.

A section of the ground has already been encroached upon; when lawyers first started constructing chambers inside the football ground premises in 2013, F-8 traders resisted the move, resulting in a public quarrel which culminated in both groups getting separate FIRs registered against each other.

But somehow, the lawyers managed to proceed with construction on the premises.

This time around too, it seems clear that if swift action is not taken, new chambers would be constructed within the next few days, further reducing the size of the public facility, developed by CDA for the citizens of the locality.

But lawyers maintain that it is the government’s responsibility to provide them land where they could build professional chambers, and that it was paying no heed to their demands.

Sources said that on Nov 30, IBA lawyers obtained a restraining order from a senior civil judge that barred the CDA, UC administration and other respondents from creating any hurdles in the construction of temporary chambers.

When contacted, CDA Member (Estate) Khushal Khan said that the civic agency had not officially received the stay order. “We have heard that lawyers obtained a temporary stay, and once we receive a copy, we will contest those orders in a court of law,” he said.

“We have no agreement with anyone and will not allow construction on public land,” he maintained.

CDA spokesperson Malik Saleem confirmed that an operation against the illegal construction was planned for Friday. “But we postponed it due to a shortage of staff,” he said, adding that public grounds were meant for the people use and under CDA rules, construction could not be allowed there.

Islamabad Bar Association President Naveed Malik defended the construction of temporary chambers inside the ground, claiming that the structures were being constructed through an agreement reached between the lawyers’ community and the civic agency in 2013, when the chambers were first built there.

He told Dawn that IBA had over 5,000 members and a large number of the lawyers, particularly fresh graduates, did not have chambers where they could practice.

He admitted that lawyers were going to construct temporary chambers on a portion of the ground that was no longer being used for sports and had been utilised for parking. “It is the responsibility of the government to provide lawyers land for chambers, but despite our repeated requests, they pay no heeds towards our basic needs,” he said.

Mr Malik claimed that it was due to the government’s negligence that IBA lawyers were forced to build chambers near the district courts in F-8, while others had resorted to establishing temporary chambers in the “open space” situated adjacent to the complex.

“There is a plot allocated for the district courts in sector G-10 and we again request the government to construct another judicial complex there, so we could move from F-8 to G-10,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2017