ISLAMABAD: The controversy surrounding the luxury flat once owned by former prime minister Imran Khan reached the Islamabad High Court again on Tuesday.
A division bench had already restrained the Capital Development Authority (CDA) from dispossessing buyers of One Constitution Avenue, including the man who purchased Mr Khan’s apartment, and issuing a stay order on intra-court appeals filed against a single bench verdict that had left their fate tied to the defaulting builder.
The flat originallyowned by Mr Khan was sold directly to Shahid Naseer through the builder of the controversial project, M/s BNP’s Farooq Ahmed Sheikh.
A division bench, comprising Justice Mohammad Azam Khan and Justice Raja Inaam Ameen Minhas, heard the appeals filed by the residents of One Constitution Avenue, and directed the CDA not to take any coercive action against the occupants till the next hearing.
The dispute traces back to a 2005 lease agreement between the CDA and BNP (Private) Limited for a fivestar hotel project, later converted into the luxury residential and commercial complex, One ConstitutionAvenue. The lease was terminated in 2016, restored by the Supreme Court in 2019 on stringent conditions, including payment of Rs17.5 billion in instalments backed by bank guarantees, and then cancelled again after BNP allegedly defaulted.
Last month, a single bench of the IHC upheld the CDA’s cancellation, ruling that third-party buyers would ‘sinl( or sail’ with the original lessee. That verdict triggered panic among residents, with reports of officials breaking down doors to serve eviction notices.
Mr Naseer, who purchased the flat originally owned by the former prime minister, signed a servicedapartment booking agreement with BNP in July 2022 for a two-bed unit on the 11th fioor of Tower C, for Rs93.575 million.
Mr Naseer has already paid Rs45.5 million nearly 48 per cent of the total price via wire transfer, according to the agreement available with Dawn.
The apartment, described as approximately 1,970 square feet, was to be ready for possession by August 31, 2022, with BNP reserving the right to extend the deadline up to February 28, 2023.
That deadline has long passed. No completion certificate has ever been issued by the CDA for the project.
The agreement placesmost risks on the buyer.
Clause 4 states that the risk of loss or damage to the apartment passes to the buyer on the completion date ‘irrespective of whether he has physically taken possession’. Clause 13 allows BNP to forfeit up to25 percentofthe consideration if the buyer defaults on payments.
Clause 12, which deals with default by the sub-lessor (BNP), gives the buyer the sole remedy of terminating the agreement after December 31, 2023, and getting payments back less any amounts already paid to the buyer as a 6pc annual surcharge.
Court records show that 240 flats in the disputed project were allotted to thecountry’s power elite. The list included a former acting president (who served two non-consecutive terms), a former Senate chairman, a former prime minister, a former chief of air staff, former naval chief, two former chief justices of Pakistan, a former chief justice of the Lahore High Court, and a former defence minister.
Intriguing new facts have also surfaced in the court record, including a 2012 interim arbitration award issued by incumbent Defence Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif then a private citizen and a former chamber president to resolve disputes between the two main partners of the project.