Tanveer Hussain@tanveerntu
The One Constitution Avenue episode is not only a property dispute. It is a governance failure produced by regulatory delay, judicial overreach or under-design, weak protection of third-party rights, and coercive enforcement culture.
On the available facts, the CDA had a serious legal claim: the developer allegedly defaulted on major payments and the project was converted from a hotel project into apartments. The Islamabad High Court has now upheld CDA’s lease cancellation. But the manner of enforcement—late-night police action, panic among residents, short notice, and unclear treatment of occupants—raises a separate and very serious rule-of-law question. A lawful outcome can still be implemented unlawfully, inhumanely, or economically foolishly.
The better reform direction is not “let the developer escape” or “hand everything to CDA.” It is a court-supervised asset-resolution model: protect residents and bona fide purchasers/tenants, preserve the asset’s economic value, recover public dues transparently, investigate CDA’s own regulatory failure, and use professional receivership or public auction rather than bureaucratic asset capture.
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