Margalla Tower owners

Supreme Court orders CDA to pay compensation to Margalla Towers owners

The Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to pay within 15 days Rs1.75 billion to the 143 apartment owners in the Margalla Towers which had collapsed in the October 8, 2005 earthquake.

The court’s compensation award was warmly welcomed by the affected families. It came 20 days before the second anniversary of the devastating earthquake which killed 74 residents of the Margalla Towers and about 73,000 in all.

A CDA source said the body would challenge the award as the compensation amount excluded the millions of rupees the CDA has paid to the affected apartment owners on the court’s orders.

CDA had already set aside Rs1.5 billion for compensation in its budget for the current year.

Monday’s award was delivered by a four-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. It directed the CDA to hold a meeting with the representatives of Margalla Towers Residents Action Committee (MTRSC) in two days and finalise the plan regarding release of compensation amount.

After paying the compensation, the land and the surviving structure of the Margalla Towers will belong to the CDA.

In case the court order is implemented immediately, the owner of a one bed-room apartment would receive roughly Rs5 million, that of two-bed apartment Rs6.5 million, of three-bed Rs8.5 million and of four-bed Rs11 million.

The case of Margalla Towers was filed in the Supreme Court before the suspension of Chief Justice and its last hearing took place on March 8, 2007, a day before his suspension. The court decided the case on the very first hearing after the CJ regained the charge of his office.

No compensation should be paid against the five apartments belonging to Ramzan Khokhar, the builder and first owner of the Margalla Towers, who was accused of faulty construction which caused one-and-a-half block of the five-block Margalla Towers to collapse.

The CJ wondered why the CDA wanted to compensate Ramzan Khokhar when he committed criminal negligence while constructing the building.

Khokhar, his wife, and consultant engineer Hafeez Sheikh have been declared absconder as they had fled to United Kingdom following the collapse of the building.

The court gave more relief to the dwellers of Margalla Towers by excluding the rent they have been receiving from the CDA since the building collapsed from the compensation amount.

The CDA told the court that it will have to sell the land and the abandoned structure of the Margalla Towers to pay the compensation. But the CJ said that had nothing to do with the compensation and the CDA has to pay Rs1.75 billion within 15 days to the affected people.

Media coordinator of MTRAC Iftikhar Chaudhry said the committee would shortly sit with the CDA to finalise a schedule for the payment of compensation which would be according to the size of an apartment.

The residents’ action committee asked the SC to make public the inquiry report of the Prime Minister’s Inspection Commission so that people responsible for the Margalla Tower tragedy could be punished. He said eight chairmen of the CDA have been held responsible for poor construction of Margalla Towers including Fariduddin Ahmed, Shafi Sehwani, Khalid Saeed, Zafar Iqbal, Qamar Zaman, Mir Laiq Shah, Abdul Rauf Chaudhry and Kamran Lashari.

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