ISLAMABAD, Nov 5: Slow response from government departments in many legal cases pending in courts of law creates hardship for litigants; but for former president Gen (retired) Pervez Musharraf it seems to be a blessing as he is enjoying a non-stop stay order against confiscation of his luxury farmhouse in Chak Shahzad.

The legal team of Capital Development Authority (CDA) has neither approached the court for vacation of the stay nor filed any written reply even two-and-a-half months after the order was passed. Normally, in such cases a government department files reply to the court concerned within a fortnight after receiving the notice.

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) issued the stay order on September 23 on the request of Sehba Musharraf after an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi ordered confiscation of the former president’s property in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case.

Shah Khawar, a PPP lawyer and former deputy attorney general, said it raised a question mark why CDA did not go to vacate the stay order regarding the ownership of Musharraf's farmhouse, affecting the order of another court passed in the assassination case.

Anti-Terrorism Court Judge Shahid Rafiq on August 27 ordered confiscation of the farmhouse belonging to Gen Musharraf along with his other property after he was declared a proclaimed offender for his repeated absence from the court.

His property details provided to the court by the Federal Investigation Agency included the farmhouse, a 1,000-square-yard plot in Gwadar and over Rs80 million in six banks accounts.

Following the orders of the ATC, Ms Musharraf filed a civil suit in the IHC to save the five-acre farmhouse that is still owned by her husband according to the CDA record.

The IHC on September 23 maintained the status quo on her petition in which she claimed the ownership of the farmhouse. The court also sought reply from CDA and adjourned the hearing till the date to be fixed by the registrar office.

In her petition, the former first lady maintained that her husband had bought the farmhouse on November 10, 2003, and in 2008 verbally gifted it to her after getting physical possession and she started construction work at the site.

Fawad Chaudhry, the counsel for Ms Musharraf, told Dawn that he challenged the ATC verdict confiscating the farmhouse and after the stay order from the IHC the case had become stronger.

He said the stay order had prolonged because CDA did not submit its reply. To some extent, this again goes into our favour, he added.

An IHC official on the condition of anonymity said respondents in a petition submit their reply in two weeks time or maximum within a month and after receipt of the reply the registrar office fixed their cases for hearing.

The CDA in a number of other instances has also delayed the reply that caused the number of pending cases piling up, he added.

Currently, over 1,000 cases related to the CDA are pending in IHC and with every passing day the number is increasing, he pointed out. In some cases, Justice Mohammad Anwar Khan Kasi also fined CDA for their lethargic attitude, he added.

When contacted, Mohammad Ramzan Chaudhry, the CDA legal adviser, said the court had not yet fixed the date for hearing of the case; therefore, he could not file the reply.

“I will check the status of the case from the court on the very next working day,” he added.

A senior official of the CDA legal department said due to increased litigation and slow disposal of cases, the authority had decided not to depend solely on its legal advisers and their associates.

He said recently the authority had decided to engage private lawyers in addition to its own legal advisers. When asked whether the cash-starved CDA would afford the fee of extra lawyers, he said due to the stay orders CDA was already facing loss of millions of rupees; adding the authority was optimist that private lawyers would help the civic body in saving this loss. He said the lawyers would be paid in accordance with the criteria and on case-to-case basis.