ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Thursday held that land for the capital’s sectors F-14 and F-15 was legally acquired by the Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation (FGEHF) under the Land Acquisition Act (LLA) of 1894 and its distribution among the allotted persons did not violate the relevant laws or the Constitution.

A four-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Mushir Alam had taken up a set of appeals mainly instituted by the FGEHF against the Islamabad High Court’s order of Sept 25, 2018, scrapping the federal government housing scheme in sectors F-14 and F-15.

Authored by Justice Alam, the main judgement set aside the high court verdict and held that the Capital Development Authority Ordinance (CDAO) 1960, on which the high court had relied, neither contained an ‘overriding’ nor a ‘non-obstante’ clause that might nudge out the LAA 1894 from its applicability in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).

The Supreme Court observed that under the CDAO 1960, the requirement of ‘planning and development’ of the new capital of Pakistan and such kind of enactment provided a complete mechanism in itself, which was a self-contained enactment, having no dependency for the acquisition of land on the LAA 1894, unlike similar statutes catering for planning and development of major and developing cities.

Apex court sets aside IHC decision to scrap government housing scheme

The CDA and FGEHF had agreed to initiate a housing scheme in Sector F-14 with collaboration and accordingly the housing and works secretary initiated a summary on Jan 6, 2015 for the acquisition of land for FGEHF in Sector F-14 and some parts of Sector F-15 in ICT.

The then prime minister approved the summary on May 1, 2015, and notifications under Section 4 and later under Section 17 of the LAA were issued by the ICT commissioner on May 20, 2015 and Dec 4, 2015, respectively.

On Sept 29, 2016, a development contract was awarded to the Frontier Works Organisation and subsequently the ICT commissioner issued a notification regarding land in F-15/3 and F-15/4 on June 15, 2017.

The collector then announced the award for land situated in revenue estates of Tarnol and Jhangi Syedan in ICT in favour of the FGEHF on July 6, 2017, but the owners/natives of the area challenged these notifications and the awards before the IHC.

The Supreme Court, however, observed that no arguments strong enough were put forth to show the CDAO 1960 could override the LAA provisions. Therefore, in the absence of the overriding or superseding or ‘non-obstante’ provision within the CDAO 1960, the apex court sees no reason strong enough why the CDAO 1960 should override the provisions of the LAA 1894 as held by the IHC.

Both these legislations (CDAO and LAA) were merely overlapping and there appeared to be no conflict between the two statutes, the apex court held, adding that there was no apparent reason why these statutes could not exist coextensively as each of them catered to a different object and purpose.

The Supreme Court also cited a number of judgements to explain that the principle laid down earlier is that the land used for housing societies qualifies as a ‘public purpose’ land, adding that its acquisition by the FGEHF was no longer for a specified class of federal government employees but every employee working for the federation.

Therefore, the opinion of the high court could not be maintained regarding public purpose not being justified, the SC judgement held.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2020