The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Housing and Works Ministry to submit details of a housing scheme started in Zone-VI of the federal capital to provide cheap housing facilities to the federal government employees. A two-member Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Justice Ghulam Rabbani was hearing a suo motu case about alleged irregularities in purchase of land by the Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation (FGEHF).
The court summoned the details of the process of acquiring 3,000 kanals of land and sought justification for the joint venture between the Housing Ministry and the Capital Development Authority (CDA).
During the hearing, the chief justice noted that the report prepared by a sub-committee formed on the orders of the CDA chairman clearly indicated that the residential scheme was not feasible due to difficult topography. He said 55 percent of the land acquired could not be utilised for residential plots.
To a court query, Ghulam Sarwar Sindhu, a member of the committee, said he had raised various objections in his report, as there was no easy access due to difficult topography of the site. Riaz Ahmed Rathore, lawyer for the ministry told the court that of the total 3,000 kanals of land, 2,300 kanals had been acquired for Rs 0.9 million per kanal and had been transferred to the ministry. He said the ministry had run an advertisement on February 7, 2009, and a total of 16 firms had offered to develop the site, of which three had been selected.
The chief justice noted that the CDA report had held that they purchased the land at high price with difficult topography and without optimal utility of land. The chief justice then directed the Ministry of Housing Secretary Raja Abbas to look into the issue and adjourned proceedings for 15 days.
