Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) conditionally accepted the plea to unseal the Safa Gold Mall and directed the civic body to open the premises; whereas, the court imposed certain conditions on the mall owner and asked him for strict compliance within one week.

The court, while giving interim relief to the owner of Safa Gold Mall, located in Sector F-7, has directed the civic body to unseal the premises of the shopping centre, but the IHC imposed five conditions as well.

The IHC directed the owner to pay the outstanding dues of the authority within the next seven days. The court has also granted three days to shift the electricity generator from the encroached land to inside the building of the mall and a same time frame has also been fixed to remove the dancing fountains placed on the CDA land in front of the said shopping mall.

The court also directed that no further construction on the building of Safa Gold Mall would be carried out by the owner; whereas, the owner would be bound to remove all the offices operating in the basement, which is primarily reserved for car parking.

The court categorically declared that if the owner failed to fulfil any of the above mentioned conditions then the CDA shall have the right to seal the Safa Gold Mall again.

The CDA’s official considered the court decision a ‘win win’ situation for both the civic body and the owner of the said mall, as now the owner is bound to pay all the outstanding dues and the removal of illegalities from inside and outside the building.

While talking to the Daily Times, the Director Building Control Section (BCS), Shafi Marwat, has said: “The court gave an interim relief to the owner of Safa Mall with strict conditions and if the management of shopping mall would deviate than the Authority would take appropriate action once again as per the law.”

The Safa Gold Mall was sealed by the CDA on 28 July 2016 over the violations of building bylaws and outstanding dues of the Authority. The owner of the mall was moved to the civil court first against the sealing operation of the CDA, but failed to get relief. Then, he filed a plea before the IHC and a prayer to unseal his mall.

The owner of the shopping mall, Rana Abdul Qayum, while responding to the issue said: “We have already removed the fountain and initiated the process to shift the generator from the CDA land.” He said further: “We will pay the CDA dues within one week and also shift the security offices from the basement as per the direction of the court.”

The owner added rhetorically that the behaviour of the CDA was discriminatory with him as every skyscraper building in the capital city had done the same violations, but the Authority only sealed his premises, which was an act of his victimisation.

After the sealing of the multi-storey shopping mall, the traders, shopkeepers and workers of the mall held a series of protests against the CDA and demanded to open the mall as the closure of the Safa Gold Mall was causing financial losses to them. After the release of the court order on Friday, the happy protesters thanked all those, who supported them in their hard time.

Although, the dispute is apparently settled for the time being, but the bone of contention is still alive as the major disagreement between the CDA and the owner is the construction of a cinema on the eighth floor of the Safa Gold Mall.