LAHORE: A suo moto notice taken by the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar for ensuring forensic audit of the housing societies has been widely appreciated.
Residents of different housing societies in Lahore claim that millions are collected from residents as maintenance charges while their expenditure is un-audited and non-transparent.
Mohammed Saeed Khan , resident of a private housing scheme (Tariq Gardens) claims that owners of private housing schemes in Lahore evade millions of rupees as tax and causing loss to the exchequer, showing income and expenditure in the names various projects for residents, while no such projects exist in reality.
“Even government departments including Lahore Development Authority (LDA), Cooperative Housing Societies Registrar and Income Tax Department fail to take action against such schemes,” he added.
Advocated Ashraf Hussain, who has vast experience in dealing with cases involving private societies said that LDA favouring private developers replaced Rule 49 of Private Housing Rules 2010 with Rule 54 of Private Housing Schemes Rules 2014, where complete control of management and maintenance of the schemes was shifted from associations of plots owners to the developers.
With this replacement, residents of private schemes lost control and say in the management and maintenance of the scheme despite being the primary stakeholders, he added.