ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Friday told the Supreme Court that investigations were needed into the dealings of 279 cooperative housing societies, out of a total of 667 in the country.

A report on the forensic audit of the housing societies furnished before the Supreme Court in a suo motu case says that of the 279 societies, 38 out of a total of 66 are in the federal capital and have been recommended for further inquiry; 16 of 98 in the Punjab Zone-I have been recommended for probes; nine out of 42 in the Punjab Zone-II are on the red line; 164 out of 282 in Sindh Zone-I and 41 out of 117 in the Sindh Zone-II are in the grey list; one out of 36 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa requires a probe and 10 out of 26 in Balochistan need investigations.

The FIA has also sought approval from the Supreme Court to a set of recommendations it has developed to regulate the private housing societies, one of which is the setting up of a committee comprising all registrars of cooperative departments of the provinces, representatives of provincial law departments and a representative of federal law ministry. This committee should be tasked with reviewing the cooperative laws to suggest suitable and appropriate amendments to the law.

Likewise, the recommendations say, the sole proprietor firms and the firms registered under the Partnership Act should be banned to launch a housing project. Instead, only the companies registered under the Companies Act 2017 should be allowed to engage in developmental activities in the housing sector.

Similarly the federal government should be directed to issue a notification for enforcement of Section 456 of the Companies Act 2017 for regulating the advances received by the companies from the public for real estate projects.

One of the recommendations calls for a centralised agency at the provincial or the federal level to look after regulatory affairs of private and cooperative housing societies, which should also have investigative powers to prevent fraud and overbooking and ensure proper collection of stamp and other duties and the registration of sale deed of each plot with the revenue department should be made mandatory for every housing society.

The report recalls that a bill for regulation of the housing sector titled Real Estate (Regulation and Development Act 2017) has been tabled by Senator Mohsin Aziz in the Senate. The bill, which is under scrutiny of a Senate committee, will cover most of the recommendations of the FIA.

The FIA has also requested the apex court to issue a directive to the development authorities for preparation of master plans of all big cities and strict adherence to it during the future expansion of these cities.

Likewise development of the authorities and other regulators should also be directed to introduce one window operation for approval of housing projects with strict timelines for holding meetings of the District Planning and Design Committees and for the decision on the applications of the developers.

The land sub-division rules framed by the provinces should be reviewed and amended and directives should be issued to all development authorities and regulators to immediately convene meetings of the committees concerned to decide the registration cases of the private schemes pending with them for scrutiny or for any other verification activity.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2020