ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority has partially sealed the Safa Gold Mall, located in Jinnah Super Market here.

CDA officials told Dawn here on Sunday that mall was built on a cancelled plot, therefore, an operation was conducted to take over the property. However, they said that in the first phase, they had sealed the two-storey basements of the mall and the management office and food court on the 7th floor.

The operation was carried out jointly by the Estate Wing and Building Control Section of CDA on Saturday night. The officials said that the civic agency also decided to issue individual notices to operators of the shops in the mall to vacate the building, otherwise action would also be taken against them.

“We have sealed the parking, food court and management office of the mall. The mall stands on a cancelled plot,” CDA spokesperson Syed Safdar Ali told Dawn.

The said plot was cancelled in 2017, but the civic agency did not seal the building because the case was being investigated by the National Accountability Bureau.

The officials said that on June 11 the apex court observed during hearing of a case that if Safa Gold Mall was built on a space allocated to a hospital the plot should be retrieved.

Afterwards, the CDA wrote to NAB about status of the case, which gave a go-head to the civic agency to move against the mall in accordance with the apex court’s verdict of June 11.

The mall with three illegal storeys has been built on the CDA health directorate’s plot. The civic agency had auctioned the plot No 5 at Jinnah Super in 2010 where its health department was once located. However, the CDA converted it into a commercial plot. Later, the plot owner, in connivance with the authority’s officials, constructed three unauthorised storeys.

The CDA first allowed the “unauthorised” construction by the owners, but later withdrew the dubious permission when the matter was highlighted at different forums. Also, some of the CDA officials faced jail and trial in this scam.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2019