ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday set aside the regulations that empowered the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to create plots on the greenbelts.

IHC Justice Sardar Ejaz Ishaq Khan while deciding the petitions of a few residents of Sector G-11 held that the CDA’s regulations were illegal and ordered the demolition of houses built on such plots since 2021.

The petitioners’ counsel, Barrister Umar Gillani, contended before the court that in 2021, the CDA officials showed up in the idyllic neighbourhood and informed them that new plots would be carved out in the open space which lay adjacent to a nullah at the end of their street. He claimed that the creation of such plots was tantamount to “china-cutting”.

The petitioners challenged this on the grounds that the layout plan of their area had already attained finality back in the 1990s.

Orders demolition of houses built on such land since 2021

They contended the plots destroyed the calm and visual relief and also deprived their children of space to play. The counsel requested the court to cancel the plots for violation of the petitioners’ right to life under Article 9 of the Constitution.

He contended such plots posed a life hazard to residents by exposing the area to flooding and referred to an incident in 2021. Similar allotment and construction close to nullahs resulted in flooding in Sector E-11 in 2021, in which a woman and her child lost their lives.

In its defence, the CDA relied on the “Regulation of Amendment in Layout Plan 2019”.

The regulations purport to give the CDA very wide powers to amend the layout plans of sectors in Islamabad.

The CDA contended that the new plots had been carved out in pursuance of the enactment of these regulations. Justice Khan, however, admonished the CDA for the illegal creation of plots after the layout plan was finalised.

The court held that if the CDA was allowed to carve out plots in developed areas, “there would remain no certainty for any owner of a plot in Islamabad with abutting land to know for certain what new monstrosity may stand erected in front of his house after he has expended his time, money and energy in building a house with the layout then existent and on the basis of which he decided to purchase that specific plot”.

The judgement noted, that “instead of developing the huge areas of land available to CDA as new sectors, [the] CDA is going around scraping the bottom of the barrel and scrounging for tiny spaces to create new plots in already developed sectors…”.

Even though such carving out of plots did not change the residential character of the area, it did change the “character of the residence” of the petitioners, which could not be done after a layout plan was approved.

Going further, the court ordered a house under construction on the site to be razed and the debris to be cleared from the open space within 30 days of the judgement.

The allottees of the illegal plots, the judgement said, retained the right to seek any compensation they might be entitled to from the CDA through separate proceedings, including those of “tort of breach of public duty”, it added.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2024