Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Mayor of Islamabad Shaikh Ansar Aziz has obtained the approval of the civic authority’s board for the appointment of an elected Chairman from Union Council-11’s (Mughal) Adil Aziz Qazi, as Additional Legal Advisor in the CDA, by ignoring the “conflicts of interest” persisting in said appointment.

The CDA engages lawyers in two categories; Legal Counsel and Additional Legal Advisors while the whole legal team is headed by a Legal Advisor.

Additional Legal Advisors receive a regular package of Rs.25000 per month in addition to a sum of Rs.20,000 in each case of district courts and Rs.40,000 in the cases of high courts.

The appointment of Mr Qazi is being considered a direct conflict of interest with the CDA because elected chairmen are supposed to deal with the civic body on a daily basis while the move is also a political favour which will further ruin the already ill-reputed Law Directorate.

Besides this appointment, another elected UC chairman belongs to the ruling party. Sardar Mehtab is already working as ALA, who himself accepts his deficiencies as a practitioner, but has been deputed in dozens of cases.

Sources inside the CDA claimed that the appointment of the UC Chairman Chaudhry Naeem Gujjar, was also in the pipeline, but got delayed due to his recent threating statement in the media against the Authority.

In recent days, an Additional Legal Advisor, Raja Adnan, was also booked by the law enforcement agencies, found involved in the embezzlement of millions in the Housing Society of the Employees of Ministry of Commerce appoint a “General Secretary” of the management committee.

A well-placed source inside the Authority has revealed that most of the legal advisors of the civic body are under a silent deal with the private parties. He said; “they favour the CDA’s opponents in the courts instead of the civic body by gaining huge monetary benefits.”

“It is no secret in the Authority that the legal advisers are being chosen by private parties according to their own wishes to win their cases,” a legal adviser of the CDA commented.

As informed by a source in the Law Directorate regarding an unannounced ban on allocating the cases to an ALA Malik Saeed Advocate, who has not been deputed even on a single case in the last five months because his previous conduct in the cases was doubtful.

When questioned, the Deputy Director General Law Miss Shaista, on a policy according to which any case can be assigned to any legal advisor among the available panellists, refused to answer and referred towards the Public Relations Directorate.

However, the Member Administration, Salman Akbar Waraich, has defended the fresh appointment by saying: “The appointment of Mr. Qazi is made on the recommendations received by the Ministry of Law Justice and Human Rights and we have just confirmed these recommendations.”

On the question regarding Sardar Mehtab Advocate and Raja Adnan, he responded; “Mr. Mehtab did not receive even a single case since I joined the CDA whereas we withdrew the appointment of Raja Adnan when his involvement in the affairs of a private housing society surfaced.”

Contrary to the statement of the Member Administration, another board member on the condition of anonymity said: “It was not disclosed in the board meeting that Qazi Adil Aziz is an elected chairman.”

In recent days, the Mayor, Shaikh Ansar, has also appointed two deputy mayors and two elected chairmen as focal persons of the CDA. It is not clear yet, what parks and privileges, these focal persons would receive from the Authority.