FIA books CDA officials in alleged land fraud case

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency has registered a case against two Capital Development Authority officials over alleged irregularities in the transfer of a farmhouse plot that was already under litigation.

The FIA’s Anti-Corruption Circle booked a deputy director and a dealing assistant, accusing them of unlawfully issuing No Demarcation Certificates for the property despite the dispute having been pending since 2022. The case was registered under Sections 420, 468, 471 and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 5(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1947.

The FIR stated the officials acted with mala fide intent and withheld the fact that the plot was already under litigation while processing the transfer. The dealing assistant submitted a proposal stating there was no restriction, court case or National Accountability Bureau inquiry involving the plot, while the deputy director approved the NDC without checking the relevant file.

The transfer was later executed in favour of Irum Kousar, wife of complainant Raja Sajjad Rabbani, a Norwegian national. Rabbani later found that he had been deprived of the right to transfer or sell the property because the litigation had been concealed.

A legal expert familiar with property disputes in Islamabad described the trend as troubling. “The pattern is deeply concerning,” said a legal expert familiar with property disputes in Islamabad. “CDA officials, who are supposed to be custodians of land records, have become instruments in facilitating illegal transfers of disputed properties. Overseas Pakistanis and unsuspecting buyers are being trapped in litigation.”

Other property disputes involving overseas Pakistanis

Another case involved a Pakistani-origin British national in a farmhouse dispute pending before the Federal Constitutional Court. Advocate Kashif Ali Malik, appearing for Ch. Saqib Tassadaq in a case related to a farmhouse in Orchard Scheme on Murree Road, said the overseas Pakistani had become entangled in litigation without his knowledge.

Court documents showed the decree concerning that property was obtained through proceedings conducted in the applicant’s absence through deliberate fraud, collusion, concealment of material facts, misrepresentation and non-joinder of indispensable parties, rendering the proceedings fundamentally defective and coram non judice. The Federal Constitutional Court has recently taken cognisance of the matter.

In a separate case, Mohammad Rafique Butt, an Oslo-based Pakistani, found that his plot in the National Police Foundation Housing Scheme had been cancelled despite his having paid all dues. The plot in Sector E-11, valued at about Rs110 million, was later allotted to incumbent Capital City Police Officer Lahore Bilal Siddique Kamyana for around Rs1.5 million, a rate fixed before 2000.

The sessions court has issued a stay order and stopped construction on the plot. Mr Kamyana sold the property days after the allotment, and Mr Butt has also made the current allottee, who began construction, a respondent in the case.

Retired Deputy Inspector General Shahid Iqbal, who lives in Canada, also had his E-11 plot cancelled and reallotted to Deputy Inspector General Mohsin Ali, who was serving as NPF director at the time. Mr Iqbal has filed a civil suit. Mr Kamyana and Mr Mohsin Ali, along with former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa inspector general Akhtar Hayat Khan, FIA Director General Dr Usman Anwar and DIG Karim Khan, also received one-kanal plots in E-11. Former NPF managing director Sabir Ahmed, himself among the allottees, had previously defended the policy, saying NPF rules permitted cancellation of plots lying vacant for decades and their reallotment to eligible Police Service of Pakistan officers at the original old price.