<\/p>\n
A tale of shady dealings and malfeasance lies behind Bahria Town Karachi\u2019s relentless expansion in defiance of the Supreme Court\u2019s 2019 verdict.<\/p>\n
In August last year, several people received an unexpected \u2018call up notice\u2019 by email or post from the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). It directed them to visit NAB\u2019s complaint verification cell in Karachi on September 13 in person in connection with a complaint they had filed with the bureau. Around 40 people had filed a joint complaint in late 2020. Over the subsequent months, many others followed suit on an individual basis. The complaints were almost identical: they alleged<\/a> that Bahria Town Ltd had taken their life savings and not given them the properties they had paid for within the area where the Supreme Court had allowed the firm to develop Bahria Town Karachi (BTK). But Pakistan\u2019s premier accountability body has only now \u2014 two to three years later \u2014 bestirred itself to take note of their complaint about a land scam almost unprecedented in scope. And yet, NAB is only one player in a sordid tale of corruption and malfeasance that leaves almost no institution, no governing authority, untainted. (DG NAB, Karachi, Javed Akbar Riaz, responded that the new NAB ordinance bars NAB officials from commenting on any ongoing inquiry.)<\/p>\n District Jamshoro, deh Mole. The Bahria Town wall snakes several kilometres across the landscape, in brazen violation of Supreme Court orders. It ends abruptly on a promontory overlooking Mole naddi down below. There is no telling where it will go, or how much land it will ultimately encompass. It could be a metaphor for BTK itself \u2014 open-ended and fluid, spreading wherever the patronage of an avaricious ruling elite enables it to. This, despite the Supreme Court judgment of March 2019 that allowed<\/a> 16,896 acres for the project while making it legally binding upon Bahria to pay Rs460 billion in installments over seven years for the cost of that land.<\/p>\n On Nov 23, 2023, the Supreme Court declared<\/a> the firm to be in default for having paid only Rs24bn out of Rs166.25bn (excluding applicable markup) that was due by then. The judgment authored by Chief Justice of Pakistan Qazi Faez Isa reads: \u201cThe entire balance amount has become due and payable. \u2026Bahria Town\u2019s excuse to stop payment was that it did not get the agreed acreage of land, which was a false pretext.\u201d The court-ordered survey that was submitted that day had clearly exposed Bahria\u2019s lie, having found it to be in possession of 3,035 acres in excess of 16,896 acres, ie nearly 18 per cent.<\/p>\n How did the real estate giant achieve this \u2018feat\u2019 while evading accountability for four long years? This report documents the cunning strategy that Bahria \u2014 abetted by powerful elements and corrupt authorities \u2014 employed to obfuscate the facts and create plausible deniability in its plans for BTK\u2019s expansion. As a lawyer put it in a conversation with Dawn<\/em>: \u201cUnless this collusion is put an end to, Bahria and other unscrupulous players in the land business will continue to believe themselves above the law.\u201d<\/p>\n A precis of two earlier Supreme Court judgments would be useful here for background. On May 4, 2018, the apex court in a landmark<\/a> judgment had declared Bahria\u2019s acquisition of thousands of acres of land in Karachi\u2019s Malir district to be illegal and \u201cvoid ab initio\u201d \u2014 that is, void from the outset. [The brazen manner in which the law was trampled on to hand over the land to the private developer was detailed<\/a> in Dawn\u2019s<\/em> \u2018Bahria Town: greed unlimited\u2019 on April 18, 2016.]<\/p>\n Pursuant to the May 4 judgment, an apex court bench headed by Justice Azmat Saeed was set up to implement it. On the implementation bench\u2019s orders, Suparco, the national space agency, and Survey of Pakistan, the national mapping and land surveying government agency, carried out a survey of the area concerned. Based on their data, BoR Sindh submitted a detailed map, dated December 2018, to the court. This map marked areas in Bahria\u2019s possession\/ under its development in 2016 and those that were in its possession at the end of 2018; the total area came to 25,600 acres. Curiously enough, the implementation bench allowed Bahria \u2014 excoriated for its land grabbing by the court just the year before \u2014 the indulgence of demarcating the area the firm wished to purchase for developing BTK. On March 2, 2019, the firm submitted two documents to the court in a civil miscellaneous application; it described one of them as the \u201cinitial proposed plan of BTK designed on land measuring 23,960 acres\u201d and the other (Annex B) as a \u201cplan containing the boundaries of the land actually in possession of [Bahria] and developed by [Bahria] measuring 16,896 acres \u2026 and which now comprises the final boundaries of [BTK] project\u201d. It included an area of 9,385 acres marked in green which Bahria described as \u201cconsolidated land\u201d and 7,510 acres marked in purple that it termed \u201cland under process\u201d. (This plan, based on the BoR map submitted in court, is referenced in the Nov 23, 2023 verdict which reads: \u201cBahria Town\u2019s proposal of March 2, 2019 (CMA No. 1870\/2019) was accepted by this court\u2026 .\u201d)<\/p>\n The implementation bench gave its verdict on March 21, 2019, and allowed Bahria the 16,896 acres demarcated by the real estate firm itself to develop its housing project, for which it would pay Rs460bn over seven years as cost of the land.<\/p>\n First, let us consider the survey ordered<\/a> by the Supreme Court on Nov 8 last year to \u201cspecify the land in actual possession of Bahria Town and if any additional land has been encroached by it \u2026\u201d As directed, the Survey of Pakistan submitted its findings to the bench on Nov 23. Of the 3,035 acres that Bahria occupies in excess, 2,222 acres lie in Jamshoro and 813 acres in Malir. Among Bahria\u2019s arguments for not paying its land dues is that instead of 16,896 acres, the area for which it had agreed to pay Rs460bn, it was in possession of only 11,776.47 acres and could not sell\/develop portions being used by utility providers and constituting goths (villages). Among these portions, three deserve particular attention \u2014 the K-IV project, the high-tension line area, and the land occupied by the goths. For they reveal how Bahria has tried to hoodwink the court.<\/p>\n The map that BoR Sindh submitted to the implementation bench in 2019, on which Bahria based its own site plan, also demarcates the acreage used by the K-4 project, utility infrastructure and goths within that area; it can therefore be used as a reference to gauge Bahria\u2019s recent claims. The land for the K-4 project in the entire 25,600 acres is listed by BoR Sindh as being 335.39 acres. But Bahria has claimed, in the context of only 16,896 acres, that the land for K-4 comes to 345.75 acres. In fact, GPS data shows that the K-4 land on the 16,896 acres comes to 155 acres at most. And, contrary to its claim, Bahria has constructed three major roads on this land as well, including nine plus acres taken up by a section of the main artery, Jinnah Avenue.<\/p>\n There also appears to be a gross discrepancy in the area set aside for high-tension lines. The BoR Sindh map shows these taking up 38.3 acres whereas Bahria claims it is 303.9 acres.<\/p>\n Next, consider the goths, home to indigenous communities that have been engaged in barani (rain-fed) agriculture or livestock rearing for generations in the area where BTK is coming up. The Bahria juggernaut has upended the lives of the local people in ways the urban population of Karachi cannot even imagine. During 2015 and 2016, when \u2018encounter specialist\u2019 Rao Anwar was SP Malir, much of the land was taken over through coercive tactics by the police. These included raids, destruction of property, threats of fake terrorism cases against them, etc. As for the current situation, one village that was included in Bahria\u2019s 2019 site map, Haji Ali Mohammed Gabol goth, is spread over 58 acres and has been walled off. Another, Ali Dad goth, did not appear in that site map, but it too has been encircled. The two together add up to 103 acres; Bahria is claiming over 130 acres in excess of that for the area it says it could not develop on account of the goths.<\/p>\n Outrageously enough, Bahria appears to be excluding the 2,236 acres of roads within the area from being counted as land in its possession. The roads, amenities and infrastructure within a scheme are integral to it and are the responsibility of the developer. (In the case of BTK, the Malir Development Authority had done Bahria the unprecedented \u2018favour\u2019 of constructing the major roads, culverts and bridges inside the massive project at its own cost, as confirmed to Dawn<\/em> by senior MDA and local government officials.) In fact, in the May 4, 2018 judgment, Justice Faisal Arab applied the 60-40 ratio of land allocation for residential and non-residential use stipulated in the Karachi Building & Town Planning Regulations (section 20-4.1.3.) to calculate the worth of 7,068 acres that Bahria had acquired through an illegal process of consolidation and exchange in its initial phase. Accordingly, the honourable judge excluded 40 per cent \u201con account of its utilisation for amenities such as roads [etc] and other public places etc, [while] the remaining 60 per cent area ie 4,241 acres could safely be presumed as marketable land\u2026 .\u201d<\/p>\n Bahria\u2019s sense of entitlement over the land it covets for BTK was manifestly clear when a Dawn<\/em> team visited the area in November to undertake its own mapping exercise. In deh Mole, Jamshoro district, they came across the Bahria wall mentioned at the beginning of this report. GPS data shows it extends well beyond what the official, court-ordered survey has mapped \u2014 5.3 kilometres further, to be exact. Not far away, atop a hillock also located in deh Mole, is an empty, one-room building with BTK emblazoned on it and which is used by BTK watchmen during warmer months. Close to this location, the team was accosted by Bahria Town Security vehicles, their horns blaring. A guard stepped out of one and asked \u201con whose authority\u201d the team had come; meanwhile the driver began to record the encounter with his phone. When a team member asked whether the land was part of BTK, he nodded and told them to leave. The vehicles continued to follow the Dawn<\/em> car as it proceeded towards the exit.<\/p>\n An excerpt from the March 21, 2019 SC judgment bears mention here. \u201cBTLK [Bahria Town Limited, Karachi] has no right, title, interest or possession of any other land owned by the government of Sindh other than 16,896 acres\u2026The government of Sindh and the MDA [Malir Development Authority] shall ensure that any land beyond this stands retrieved and no excess land shall be allowed to be occupied by BTLK. Any violation of this direction shall entail criminal action both against the functionaries of government of Sindh, MDA and the management of BTLK or whosoever is found responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n Not one inch of the 16,896 acres fell within Jamshoro district. Just a few months after this verdict, Dawn<\/em> in its report, \u2018Bahria Town & others: greed unbound\u2019 which appeared on Sept 12, 2019, exposed Bahria\u2019s active ingress into the district through the means of satellite imagery. Astonishingly, a three-member Supreme Court bench on Oct 11, 2019 \u201cexpressed satisfaction over the payment being made by the Bahria Town management in connection with [BTK] and implementation of its decisions in letter and spirit.\u201d \u2014 report in The News, Oct 12, 2019. The citadel of justice, it seemed, was unmoved by the incontrovertible evidence provided by satellite imagery of Bahria\u2019s ongoing violation of its orders.<\/p>\nMachiavellian tactics<\/h2>\n