The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has ruled on a petition, forbidding the allotment of plots to judges and other civil servants in public housing schemes, thus ending a perk of office almost considered a right. This will thus end the practice of judges getting plots at official rates, and them selling them at market rates, with the difference proving a tidy sum which would merely enrich them. The IHC has ruled that the Federal government had wrongly formulated the policy whereby the unsuccessful applications for one sector, were turned into applications for schemes in four sectors of Islamabad. The IHC has ruled that there was no reason to privilege certain groups over others on state lands.
It is appropriate to note that the application of plots to judges, of both the superior and subordinate judiciary, who were eligible as being government employees, could conceivably act as an inducement by the government to obtain decisions in its favour. It should be remembered that allotment of plots was not part of the original terms of service, and could also be varied by the federal government in the course of time. Unlike salaries and allowances, it involves a discretionary component which can be controlled by the government in its favour. The IHC has thus acted to turn into a right, something which the government has the power to use as the sun of its favour, to be turned hither and thither as it willed. That power of getting favourable decisions applied also to civil servants.
Though the judgement may have stopped the allotment of plots to civil servants and judges, it also applies to generals and journalists. The IHC may have started a process of putting a cap on the process.
