The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday ordered the Punjab government to take up the issue of the construction of Dadhocha Dam with the provincial cabinet for review, giving the provincial government three weeks to make a final decision on the matter.

In 2006, the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) had purchased 18,000 kanals near Rawalpindi at the site where the dam was to be built, and launched a housing scheme as a joint venture with Bahria Town. The DHA Valley scheme, meant for the bereaved families of martyred military personnel, was proposed at the dam site.

On Aug 4, 2015, the SC in a suo motu case had directed the Punjab government to construct the dam at the originally proposed site. Soon after these directives, the provincial government had banned the sale and purchase of land in the area and later allocated funds for the construction of the dam in its annual development plan for 2017-18.

On the SC's directives, the Punjab government in 2017 initiated the process to construct the dam at a cost of Rs7 billion to overcome the water shortage in Rawalpindi.

A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar held a hearing on Wednesday regarding the dam's construction. During the hearing, the court observed that a joint venture between Bahria Town and DHA was ready to construct the dam for free and added that the cabinet should make a final decision after reviewing their suggestions.

The court added that the Punjab government should inform the cabinet if they wanted to construct the dam themselves.

CJP Nisar took the Punjab Irrigation Department's secretary to task and inquired why he went against court orders and did not forward the matter to the Punjab cabinet.

"Why was the issue not sent to the cabinet? Why did you decide on it yourself?" the top judge remarked whilst rebuking the secretary for rejecting Bahria Town's offer for partnership.

The secretary responded that the department was not opposed to the idea of a partnership and had in fact formed a committee in this regard.

To this CJP Nisar, remarked: "Who are you to form a committee when the court has given an order?"

The secretary said that to his knowledge the court order does not mention that an approval must be sought from the cabinet and said that perhaps "a different secretary" had appeared before the court previously.

The court concluded the hearing by directing the Punjab government to review the matter in the next cabinet meeting and gave it a three-week-period to make a final decision on whether the dam will be constructed via a joint venture or if the government wants to be the sole party responsible for its construction.

Read more: Dams: To be or not to be

On November 2 the government of Punjab had rejected the proposal of property tycoon Malik Riaz for the construction of Dadhocha Dam as the Bahria Town-led joint venture (JV) proposed over Rs26 billion for the acquisition of land against Rs2.8 billion worked out by the government.

Earlier, on September 6, the SC had sought the Punjab government’s response regarding the construction of Dadhocha Dam through a public-private partnership.

The secretary of the Punjab Irrigation Department had told the apex court at that time that the project had been taken over by the department and after the dam's construction, water would be supplied to Rawalpindi's residents through the Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA).