ISLAMABAD – In a landmark judgement on Thursday, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) declared allotment of plots to judges, bureaucrats and government employees in special sectors of the federal capital illegal.
A two-member bench consisting of IHC Chief Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani announced the verdict in this case.
The court said that planned alotment of plots to aforementioned people in Sectors F-12, F-14, F-15, and G-12 was illegal, unconstitutional and against the public interest. The court ruled that alotment of plots to some people through a draw in sectors F-14 and F-15 on August 17, 2021 was not transparent.
According to the judgement, the Federal Government Employees Housing Authority (FGEHA) or the federal government could not launch any such scheme.
“The FGEHA nor the federal government is vested with power or jurisdiction under the FGEHA Act or the CDA Ordinance, as the case may be, to launch a scheme or frame a policy, which is contrary to the public interest and violative of the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the people at large,” it said.
“The assets of the state acquired through the inherent intrusive power of eminent domain can only be used for the benefit of the people at large and in public interest,” it read.
The federal government is expected to formulate and frame policies for the development of sectors F-12, G-12, F-14 and F-15 solely for the benefit of the general public and in the public interest, rather than enriching a few elites at the expense of the exchequer, it added.
The IHC said that the federal cabinet might have been kept in the dark about the repercussions of allotting the plots.
“In the records presented before the cabinet, the process of allotting plots was not mentioned.”
