Judge orders out-of-court settlement

RAWALPINDI-Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi bench Monday directed the members of Revenue Employees Cooperative Housing Society (RECHS) to settle the dispute of their land with a private housing society out of court till June 5 after a lawyer of the respondents offered out of court settlement.
LHC Justice Syed Asghar Haider adjourned the hearing in the petition of about 500 members of the RECHS that was initiated in 1989 at Morgah locality with land measuring 2,388 Kanal.

A lawyer representing Bharia Town housing society told the court that they were ready to compensate the affected members of the defunct housing society that was originally initiated for the employees of the revenue department.

According to the details of the petition moved by the affected people in 2007 the RECHS was duly registered with Rawalpindi Development Authority. The development of the land could not start due to different official and bureaucratic hurdles and indulgence of land mafia.

The petitioners through Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui advocate had stated that the administrator of the housing society in league with provincial secretary co-operative department and officials of revenue department amalgamated the society of the government employees with Bharia Town a private land developing company in violation of the law in 2005 despite the alarms raised by the members of the society.

The petitioners further alleged that the CEO of the Bharia Town first promised to develop the land and give plots to the allotted members and received the development charges from them. They stated the CEO later backed out of his promise and had further transferred the land of the society to defence housing authority (DHA).

The petitioners had also stated that they were taken aback when they came to know that army housing directorate had started developing the land of their housing society for Askari XIV with out their intimation. It dawned upon the members of the society that the CEO of the Bharia Town had further sold the land to army housing directorate leave them in the lurch.

They prayed to the LHC that the army directorate may be stopped to change the nature of the land and Secretary Co-operative may be ordered to take hold of the land to secure the future of the housing society.

Source: The Nation