The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has blocked the Capital Development Authority (CDA) from evicting hundreds of residents at One Constitution Avenue, issuing an urgent stay order.
A division bench comprising Justice Muhammad Azam Khan and Justice Raja Inaam Ameen Minhas heard the intra-court appeals filed directly by the affected residents on Monday.
The high court directed the CDA not to take any coercive action against the occupants of One Constitution Avenue until the next scheduled hearing takes place in court.
The counsel representing the residents, Sardar Taimur Aslam, told the court they wanted the CDA board to formally hear their case and allow them to prove their innocence.
Senior counsel Ali Raza argued that the CDA had leased out the land and that subleases were executed while the original lease agreement remained legally intact.
Ali Raza further contended that the CDA had received partial payment from the developer, sufficient to cover the land on which the residential towers were built.
CDA counsel Kashif Ali Malik told the court the CDA was the custodian of the land and that the Supreme Court’s 2019 order directing Rs17.5 million payment was public.
Justice Minhas observed that in the National Police Foundation case, an entire housing scheme was declared illegal, yet its residents were never ultimately dispossessed.
Justice Khan asked whether the CDA had issued a completion certificate for the project; the CDA counsel confirmed no such certificate had ever been issued.
The dispute originates from a 2005 lease between the CDA and BNP for the development of a five-star hotel project on a prime plot of land in Islamabad.
The project was later converted into One Constitution Avenue, a luxury residential and commercial complex, without the required regulatory approvals from the CDA.
The original lease was terminated in 2016 but was restored by the Supreme Court in 2019, subject to payment of Rs17.5 million in instalments backed by bank guarantees.
Last month, the IHC upheld the decision of the CDA to cancel the lease after the developer defaulted on its payments, triggering widespread uproar across Pakistani social media.
Residents alleged that officials physically broke down their doors in order to serve them with eviction notices, which prompted angry reactions from flat owners nationwide.
The Bank of Punjab and several flat owners separately filed intra-court appeals, challenging the single bench ruling that buyers would “sink or sail” with the original lessee.
Court records revealed a 2012 arbitration award issued by incumbent Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif and former chamber president Mian Hamid Javed to settle project disputes.
The arbitration was meant to resolve differences between Abdul Hafeez Sheikh of M BNP and Nadeem Zia Pirzada of M/s Paragon regarding the original five-star hotel project.
A list placed before the court revealed that 240 flats in the disputed complex were allotted to some of Pakistan’s most prominent former public office holders.
