The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked Bahria Town (Pvt) Ltd to revisit its latest offer of Rs435 billion as the “full and final settlement” for the lands it occupies in the Malir district of Karachi
Bahria Town today presented a total offer of Rs479.598 bn for three cases, including the Bahria Town Karachi Super Highway Project land, Takht Pari Forest land and the Sulkhtar and Manga land it has illegally taken over.
A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Azmat Saeed heard the case during which the legal counsel for Bahria Town, Barrister Ali Zafar, said they would pay Rs435 bn for Bahria Town Karachi over a period of nine years.
In response to this, Justice Saeed asked them to turn this into a “round figure”.
Bahria Town had previously increased its offer to Rs405 bn from the earlier Rs358bn for the lands it possesses in the Malir district of Karachi. However, this had not satisfied the apex court.
The court had taken up implementation of its May 4, 2018 judgement in the case which held that the land grant to the Malir Development Authority (MDA) by the Sindh government, its exchange with the land of the private land developers – Bahria Town – and anything done under the provisions of the Colonisation of Government Land Act 1912 by the provincial government was illegal.
The land was granted to the MDA for launching an incremental housing scheme, but instead of doing so, the authority swapped it with Bahria Town, which launched a scheme of its own, the judgement had held.
Currently, Bahria Town is in possession of 16,896 acres of land in Malir district, whereas it has surrendered 7,675 acres to the MDA.
During the hearing today, Justice Saeed noted that the map presented by Prism Marketing, a private marketing company and an authorised dealer to sell plots on behalf of the Bahria Town, was different from that submitted by Bahria Town. He added that the area that Bahria Town had surrendered had also been included as a marketable area in Prism’s map.
Published in Daily Times, March 7th 2019.
