FIA seeks record of 5 farms from CDA

ISLAMABAD – The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has sought complete record of recently approved five cases of agricultural farms by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) Board.

The investigation agency that is already probing massive irregularities into allotment of farmhouses, wrote to authority on November 18 asking it to submit the record of five agro farms cases, which were approved by CDA Board on August 9, 2011. These five cases were among 17 cases of farmhouses, which were earlier cancelled by the Chairman CDA in November 2010 following surfacing of irregularities in their allotment process. CDA had cancelled 13 cases of allotted agro farms and four under process cases.

“CDA Board has approved these five cases after having the consent of FIA officials. They have directed us that though FIA and NAB authorities were probing these cases but CDA could approve those cases out of the cancelled one which are relatively clear,” a CDA official said. Earlier, CDA Board on August 9 has approved in principle these five cases subject to the fulfilment of legal procedure/s involving the allotment.

According to the CDA’s land disposal rules, agro farms are allotted to landholders in exchange of their 100 kanals of land in and around the city Islamabad.

In aforementioned 17 cancelled cases of agro farms bogus documents of 100 kanals had been submitted to get agro farms in different schemes, including Murree Road Chak Shahzad and Tarlai agro schemes.

Following the cancellation in November 2010, CDA has mandated authority’s allotment scrutiny committee to review its earlier decision of allotment of agro farms by re-scrutinising the documents and other procedures necessary to get an agro plot. The scrutiny committee is comprising of those officials who had earlier recommended those 17 cases containing several flaws and irregularities to CDA Board. Resultantly, the ASC took up 11 out of 17 cancelled cases and recommended to the board the approval of five cases in principle. Then CDA Director Land and Rehabilitation Dr Wasim Shamshad was already suspended by Establishment Division, following the recommendations of an inquiry committee comprising of two CDA officials, as he was found guilty in this case as well Kuri Model Village scam.