ISLAMABAD: The disputed status of 200 apartments in G-6 has provided government officials, especially police, the opportunity to live in government accommodation without having to pay rent to the Capital Development Authority (CDA).

The apartments were constructed by the CDA for Rs105 million on its land and was about to hand them over to the Estate Office of the housing ministry when the 2005 earthquake happened. The apartments were used to provide shelter to people affected by the earthquake and were occupied later by police officials in 2007, at the time of the Lal Masjid operation.

`We constructed the apartments on our own land on the request of the housing ministry and they were to be handed over to the ministry after payment. Before that could happen, they were occupied by government officials,` said CDA spokesperson Malik Saleem. He said the housing ministry has not yet paid the CDA and that last year, the civic authority had written to the inspector general of police to get the flats vacated from the occupation of police officials, but to no avail.

The issue of the G-6 apartments was also discussed in the National Assembly Standing Committee on Housing and Works which declared that they were the property of CDA.

During the meeting, a representative of the housing ministry had said the CDA was not handing over the apartments to which members of the committee had asked why the CDA should hand them over when they were built by the civic agency on its own land and the housing ministry had not paid the CDA for them yet as well.

The 200 apartments were constructed in the early 2000s and were to be handed over to the housing ministry on the direction of the then prime minister. However, before the formal handing over to the ministry, the apartments were occupied by government employees, mainly police officials.

According to a CDA document submitted to a sub-committee last year, 130 of the apartments were occupied by the capital police, 31 by CDA officials and 39 by other government employees.

Last year, during a meeting of a sub-committee, CDA`s then director general Asif Shahjahan had said the civic agency had planned to get the apartments back from the housing ministry since the ministry had not paid for them.

CDA Director Administration Safdar Shah said that in 2013, the Islamabad High Court had ordered the police officials to get the apartments vacated but police officials and others had filed a case in the Supreme Court which had referred the case back to IHC, where it is still pending.