ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday decided the fate of a commercial plaza built on a plot originally allotted for a swimming pool at F-6 Markaz. The apex court directed the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to charge the owner for regularising the top floor of the building.

The status of the plot reserved for a swim-ming pool was changed by the CDA.

The court also provided relief to the tenants, who were earlier evicted by the owner of the building, by ruling that they would be given possession of their shops again.

Heading a five-member bench, Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar resumed the hearing of the case related to commercialisation of the top floor of the two-storey building and eviction of the tenants.

After hearing arguments from both the sides, the court endorsed the settlement between the tenants and the landlord. It was decided that the tenants would be handed over the shops from where they had been displaced with the rent rate of Rs240 per square foot for the front side shops, Rs120 at the rear side and Rs100 per sq ft in the basement.

This tenancy will be for seven years and with 25pc increase in rent afterevery three years. The tenants will have to pay one year`s rent in advance.

During the hearing, the counsel for the plaza owner could not proved that he had a site plan approved by the CDA for the second floor of the plaza.

The CDA calculated over Rs90 million as commercialisation charges if the owner wanted to regularise the second floor.

The chief justice ruled that in case the landlord expressed willingness to pay the charges, the floor in question would beregularised otherwise the court may consider transferring the floor to the CDA.

Former CDA chairman Kamran Lashari and representatives of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) were present in the court as during the last hearing the court had hinted that it could refer the case to the anti-corruption watchdog.

On Tuesday, the chief justice observed that the matter was not being referred to NAB for the salce of good work done by Mr Lashari during his tenure as the CDA chief. The court cited a number of development works carried out by the CDA during the tenure of Mr Lashari. The chief justice, however, wondered why every illegality being referred to the apex court had been done during the tenure of Mr Lashari.

The former CDA chairman pleaded that he was not party to any illegality.

According to the traders` union, out of the 22 tenants six belonged to the Hindu community who had been running handicraft business in the building for about 30 years.

Recently, traders also held a press conference seel(ing the top court`s intervention for re-induction of the evicted businessmen.

During the last hearing, the court had formed a committee under the chairmanship of Additional Attorney General Syed Nayyar Abbas Rizvi and having representations of the counsel for the landlord and tenants to resolve the issue.

The committee in its report informed the court that the landlord was willing to reinduct the tenants while the second floor of the plaza had no approval of the CDA.