Will cabinet decide fate of Grand Hyatt Hotel case?

ISLAMABAD: The federal government says it is yet to get the Supreme Court’s December 13 judgment in the Grand Hyatt Hotel case. The issue of residential apartments constructed in the name of ‘serviced apartments’ at the place leased for construction of Grand Hyatt Hotel was referred by the Supreme Court to the federal cabinet to decide it before December 28 — the date when the apex court will decide it on its own if the cabinet failed to do so.

The land leased for construction of an international standard five-star hotel in early 2005 is adjacent to the Constitutional Avenue. The hotel was to be completed in any case in the early months of 2009.

Refusing comments on whether an important member of the cabinet, who also owns an apartment in this building, will chair the federal cabinet meeting which will consider the fate of the case, a government spokesperson, Iftikhar Durrani, said he was unaware of the issue and it was not considered during the Thursday, Dec 20 meeting.

“It was not on the cabinet’s agenda and you better contact the secretary cabinet to know the exact status of the case referred to the cabinet,” Durrani told The News.

When The News asked Fazal Abbas Maken, Federal Secretary Cabinet, as to why the case was not on the cabinet’s agenda on Thursday despite the apex court’s orders, he said the case was yet to be sent to the Cabinet Division by the Interior ministry/ CDA.

He said since his office had not received the case until Thursday, it was not placed before the cabinet. The issue was referred to the federal cabinet on December 13. “As soon as we receive the case from the CDA, it will be placed on the agenda of the very next cabinet meeting,” Maken said.

Referring to the government’s earlier position on not appointing Opposition Leader Shahbaz Sharif as the Public Accounts Committee chairman as in that case he would be auditing the performance of his own PML-N government which would be a clear conflict of interest and asked on the basis of that position will it be fair for the cabinet member to chair the cabinet meeting that will consider the issue of illegally constructed residential apartments, Durrani said he was unaware of the issue and referred The News to the federal secretary cabinet, who referred The News to the CDA chairman.

When The News was referred to the CDA chairman, the TV channels were airing news of possible removal of the CDA chairman because of his stance on regularisation of residential apartments built in the name of ‘serviced apartments’ on the land leased only for construction of a five-star hotel.

Sources in the CDA told The News that the apex court decision [in Grand Hyatt case] had been communicated to the cabinet as per SOPs. The lease [of the land] was cancelled by the CDA in 2016 because of violation of advertisement and lease agreement.

The cancellation was first endorsed by a single bench of Islamabad High Court (IHC) and then by a division bench of the same court. The Supreme Court is hearing an appeal against the decision of IHC division bench and the apex court either has to uphold the IHC division bench’s judgement or turn it down.

The important cabinet member owns a residential apartment in the Grand Hyatt Hotel tower and has also moved the IHC against the decision of cancellation of lease by the CDA and its subsequent endorsement by a single-member bench of the IHC pleading that these were ‘serviced apartments’ and not ‘residential apartments’ and there is no definition of ‘serviced apartments’ in the Pakistani laws.

It is important to mention that when it was first reported by the press in 2008 that residential apartments were being constructed at a prestigious location in the federal capital which was leased only for construction of a five start hotel, the management of Grand Hyatt Hotel Project had officially informed the CDA that it was a propaganda and the building under construction was in fact the hotel’s ‘serviced apartments’.

However, a few years later, the same management advertised the project as the “Premium Residential Project” of Pakistan. Also, some petitioners in the IHC had pleaded that these were the ‘serviced apartments’ and not residential apartments.