MP lambasts legal cover for DHA

ISLAMABAD – Ayaz Amir, PML-N MNA, in his dissenting note, blasted over privileged Defence Housing Authority (DHA) saying, “We should not be confused or taken in by the name Defence Housing Authority.”
He said, “It is a housing society of the Armed Forces and its aim, like any other housing society, is the purchase and acquisition of land for the benefit of its members. This is a private business undertaking, which has nothing to do with national security.”
According to him, “There is no shortage of housing societies throughout the country. Indeed there are many federal government departments, which have their housing societies. All these are registered and incorporated under the Cooperative Societies Act, 1925 so it should be in the case of any housing society catering to the housing needs of services officers. The question of preferential treatment should not arise.”
The PMLL-N MNA said, “But when a housing society becomes a statutory body, it acquires a preferential status. It then becomes a law unto itself and is no longer subject to the municipal jurisdiction of the city in which it is located, he added. He questioned that what is now DHA Karachi was once upon a time Pakistan Defence Officers Cooperative Housing Society Ltd Karachi, registered under the same Cooperative Societies Act, 1925, by all accounts it was a good housing society and needed no act of Parliament to perform its function.”
“Old residents of Karachi would remember that in everyday usage it was always called Defence Society. No one had any problems with that,” he said.
He observed, “As in so many other things Gen Ziaul Haq set another bad precedence when he issued the Defence Officers Housing Authority Order, 1980, turning Defence Society Karachi into a statutory body. This was discrimination in favour of one housing society. First a Lahore Defence Housing Officer Authority was established through a provincial ordinance in 1990s. Then was promulgated the Defence Housing Authority Lahore Order, 2002, (given validity later by the Seventeenth Amendment).”
He also said, “Then it was Islamabad’s turn. In Feb 2005 Gen Musharraf created DHA Islamabad through another Ordinance. It is this ordinance, which is now before us. The issue is very simple. A housing society, whether of the armed forces or of astronauts flying into space, is a housing society. It performs no sovereign function for which a sovereign body needs to be created. If dictators who were answerable to no one set bad precedents in the past, a popularly-elected assembly should be under no compulsion to emulate their example or endorse their actions.”