ISLAMABAD: Despite being snubbed by the Lahore High Court, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is making an attempt to acquire more land for the third ‘controversial’ runway of New Islamabad Inter­national Airport (NIIA).

The CAA’s plan irked the landholders in the vicinity of the airport who feared that their ancestral land would be taken against their will for ‘peanuts’ and demanded that if it was unavoidable, the CAA has to pay the market value of their land.

At the request of the CAA, Section 4 of the Land Acquisition Act 1984 was imposed through a notification in 2013 under which sale-purchase of the desired land could not take place and a rate was fixed for the CAA to purchase the land. However, the people of the area rejected the rate fixed by the CAA and refused to sell their land.

On the other hand, the CAA could not implement the land acquisition plan and did not pay the amount to the landholders, compelling them to move the court.

The LHC’s Rawalpindi bench decided the case last month, setting aside the decade-old notification about land acquisition. However, the court allowed the CAA for a fresh land acquisition but within one year.

The court observed that the notifications issued under the 1984 act were illegal, void, outcome of mala fide and became ineffective withe influx of time.

“Needless to observe that none can gage the quantum of misery and agony of a person, who shall be made to wait for the outcome of proceedings resulting in deprivation of property rights for an indefinite period by putting a clog on the enjoyment of such rights. The nutshell of above discussion is even in the absence of any timeframe in Section 4 of the Act of 1894, the respondents were obliged to take further steps for the purpose of acquisition within reasonable time, which in no case should exceed one year from the date of issuance of notification under Section 4 of Act ibid. For the foregoing reasons, all these petitions are accepted. As a result, impugned notifications referred hereinabove are set aside,” the court said in its order announced on Nov 17.

A CAA spokesman told Dawn that the authority had envisaged the development of third runway in 2016-17 and accordingly the required land had been notified. However, he agreed that it was the process of land acquisition that took longer than the expected time.

When pointed out that the airport, which was built at a cost of over Rs100 billion, already has two runways which are said to be adequate to meet the requirement for 100 years and the third one will cost billions of rupees (for land acquisition and construction) which the cash-strapped country cannot afford.

The CAA official said no runway in the world has a life of 100 years, but the planning was supposed to encompass 100 years. “In that pretext, NIIA is considered to be a regional hub in future, fully equipped to serve central Asian republics, Afghanistan, China and the entire northern part of Pakistan. In order to position an airport of such a significant importance, an airside infrastructure of runways is essential. It’s more important to acquire land at this stage because in future not only the land price will skyrocket, but its availability will also become impossible,” he added.

It has also been reported in the media that due to closure of many flights of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), the utility of the second runway has already diminished and mostly the first one is being used for flight operations.

The CAA spokesman, however, rejected this perception, claiming that the number of PIA flights had not been reduced, rather flights to the UK and Europe were expected to start from the second quarter of 2023. “The existing infrastructure will handle the operations of all wide-body aircraft of PIA as well as international airlines. Third runway is required to handle operations of narrow-body aircraft to meet future needs,” he added.

Media reports suggested that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had in 2017 barred the CAA from constructing the third runway as the existing two were sufficient to cater to future’s needs.

However, the CAA official said there were no such directives.

The landholders were of the opinion that the CAA will not be able to give them the market rate of their land which, in some places, went up to Rs5 million per kanal.

Same is the case with private housing schemes in the vicinity of the airport where people have invested their hard-earned money to have their own houses.

At this, the spokesman said determination of rates did not come under the ambit of the CAA as it was the responsibility of the revenue department to fix the rates as per the procedure laid down in the land acquisition law.

Published in Dawn, December 19th, 2022