The allottees of the Islamabad’s sectors F-14 and F-15 have approached the Supreme Court against the Islamabad High Court judgment which declared the said housing schemes as ‘against public interest’.
In its Feb 3 declaration, the Islamabad High Court had termed the ongoing and upcoming govt real estate ventures for bureaucracy and judges illegal.
The appeal, which has been filed by 35 govt servants, says that the IHC judgment amounted to judicial overreach and ‘suffers from gross illegality’ therefore, it was ‘liable to be set aside by Supreme Court’.
The IHC judgment in question had denied the allotment of plots in housing schemes of sectors F14/ F15/ G12, F12 at subsides rates to beneficiaries, all of whom included senior members of the bureaucracy and serving and retired judges of the superior judiciary.
IHC had observed that the allotment of plots to the “elite groups” had caused a Rs1 trillion loss to the public exchequer.
“Virtually every judge of the district judiciary of Islamabad was amongst the beneficiaries,” the judgment had observed. Even the judicial officers with questionable performance and repute were amongst the beneficiaries, the judgment said.
The SC petition against the IHC judgment has questioned how the land acquired for the Federal Government Employees Housing Authority (FGEHA) (or sectors F-14, F-15) could be declared illegal when it was ‘neither agitated nor was the subject matter of the writ petition filed before the high court.’
The petition also said that the prime minister had approved the summary on May 1, 2015, and two notifications under the relevant sections of the Land Acquisition Act were issued by the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) commissioner on May 20, 2015, and December 4, 2015.
It’s pertinent to note that the high court had taken up the issue in suo motu jurisdiction, powers which, the petitioners say, IHC cannot exercise under Article 199 of the Constitution as per judgments of the Supreme Court.
The petitioners have asserted that they cannot be deprived of their rights, especially when they met the criteria of approved policy and deposited ‘huge’ sums of money years ago to concerned authorities.
The petition further said that the high court could not intervene in a govt policy matter, particularly when it’s not challenged by any side as being mala fide or in violation of any laws or rights.
