IN pointing out a land grab by the two biggest real estate giants in the land, a report of the auditor general of Pakistan goes where angels fear to tread. According to the document, Bahria Town and Defence Housing Authority have encroached upon 785 kanals of state land along the Karachi-Hyderabad Motorway. Both firms have humungous gated projects coming up on either side of the Motorway. The information was uncovered while auditors were scrutinising the finances of the National Highway Authority. As per the audit report, Bahria had used 491 kanals of NHA land for constructing an interchange in the vicinity of Bahria Town Karachi “without any approval of NHA authorities and without entering into a lease agreement with NHA”. Similarly, DHA constructed an interchange and access road on NHA land/right of way: “294-kanal land was illegally utilised by DHA without any approval of NHA authorities and without entering into a lease agreement with NHA”. In a telling remark, the report says the auditors drew the attention of the NHA to this issue but despite repeated requests, the latter’s departmental audit committee did not meet to examine this audit para.

In its reluctance to follow up, NHA, the custodian of the encroached land has conducted itself in much the same way as do many others in this country — that is, kowtowing to big developers regardless of whether they break the law. This has only emboldened the more unscrupulous among them to acquire real estate in questionable ways and use it as they please with scant regard for indigenous communities, easement rights, the environment, etc. While the superior judiciary has at times handed down bold and insightful verdicts to contain the plunder of public land for commercial purposes, several of these have been reversed on appeal. Lest one forget, it was the apex court’s implementation bench for the May 4, 2018 judgement against Bahria Town which declared that no references were to be filed against those involved in its massive land grab on Karachi’s outskirts. Even when legal proceedings are initiated, they target the small fry — the local land revenue employees — rather than those who are the driving force behind such crimes. Also, when the ‘encroachers’ are hapless citizens without pelf and power, the state has no qualms bringing out the heavy machinery to ‘establish its writ’ — otherwise so glaringly absent when confronted by the heavyweights in the real estate business.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2022