The Chief Justice (CJ) of Pakistan on Saturday disposed of a suo motu notice taken on complaint of non-provision of plots in LDA City housing scheme after the Punjab Minister for Housing informed the court that the government had chalked out a plan to compensate affectees of the scheme. Minister Mian Mehmood-ur-Rashid said the government took the matter seriously and reached a practical solution to end suffering of over 9,000 citizens who had purchased files of the housing scheme.
The Chief Justice also directed the minister to ensure payment of compensation to citizens whose land had been acquired decades ago. The CJ directed the minister and the lawyers of the developers to sit together and rationalize the clause.
Expressing satisfaction over the plan, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar observed that the project should not have been developed on the basis of public-private partnership. The minister assured the court that the land would be acquired from private persons on market-based value.
Meanwhile, the lawyers of private developers objected to a clause mentioned in an agreement reach out with the government. They said the clause was threatening in nature as the government decided to refer the matter to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) if the developers failed to acquire the required land for the LDA.
He pointed out that the developers had so far handed over 58,000 kanal land to the LDA. However, he said the land was scattered. He said the LDA possessed around 9,000 kanal consolidated land where Phase-I of the housing scheme could be developed if the private developers/partners acquired 4,500 kanal further land for the authority to compact the plots.
The minister stated that the developers agreed to provide the remaining 4,500 kanal land to the LDA in phases within the period of one year. He said the affectees would be compensated in shape of plots in the Phase-I of the housing scheme. Chief Justice Nisar had taken suo motu notice of the complaints moved by a number of individuals against non-provision of plots against the files they purchased for the LDA-City housing scheme.