ISLAMABAD (Sapeher Times) There are some files that become old because time passes. And there are some files that become old because justice keeps waiting.<\/p>\n
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In Islamabad, thousands of families who surrendered their land for the development of the federal capital have lived with this second kind of waiting. Their land became part of a city planned as a symbol of a modern Pakistan, but for many of them, the promise of rehabilitation, compensation or an alternative plot remained somewhere inside a file.<\/p>\n
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That is why the Estate Wing of the Capital Development Authority is not merely another administrative office. It sits at the intersection of land, records, allotments, rehabilitation, ownership and public trust.<\/p>\n
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Today, Muhammad Zaman Wattoo is serving as Member Estate of the CDA. The position places him close to some of the oldest and most sensitive land-related matters of Islamabad.<\/p>\n
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The question before the Estate Wing is therefore larger than the movement of files.<\/p>\n
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It is about whether an institution can turn decades of accumulated paperwork into clear decisions.<\/p>\n
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A file can remain on a desk for years without feeling the weight of time.<\/p>\n
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A family cannot.<\/p>\n
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People grow old. Children become adults. Claimants die. Their heirs then inherit not only property disputes, but also the uncertainty attached to them.<\/p>\n
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This is where the real significance of the Estate Wing begins.<\/p>\n
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The issue is not that every claimant must necessarily receive what he or she demands. Law, evidence, acquisition records and eligibility have to determine that. The real issue is whether every legitimate case can receive a transparent, reasoned and lawful conclusion.<\/p>\n
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That distinction matters.<\/p>\n
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Because administrative justice is not always about saying yes.<\/p>\n
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Sometimes it is about saying no\u2014with reasons.<\/p>\n
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Sometimes it is about correcting a record.<\/p>\n
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Sometimes it is about discovering that an old file contains an error.<\/p>\n
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And sometimes it is simply about telling a waiting family exactly where its case stands.<\/p>\n
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Recent developments at the CDA suggest that these questions are again receiving attention.<\/p>\n
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In September 2026, Member Estate Muhammad Zaman Wattoo directed the Land Directorate to process affectees\u2019 allotment files relating to D-13, E-13 and F-13 and move towards balloting, while directing that undistributed shamlat land should not be included in the process. The CDA has also sought details of earlier shamlat-related files and the officials who processed them.<\/p>\n
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These are administrative directions, not final judgments on anyone\u2019s guilt or entitlement. But they illustrate an important principle: land records cannot be treated casually when an allotment may affect the rights of original affectees and other stakeholders.<\/p>\n
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The same principle is visible in another recent step.<\/p>\n
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The CDA restricted unauthorised access to its One Window Operation Centre after the Member Estate raised concerns about overcrowding and the presence of people without legitimate official business. The stated purpose was to regulate access and reduce the role of middlemen in property-transfer matters.<\/p>\n
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Again, the larger question is institutional.<\/p>\n
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Can an ordinary citizen approach the authority without feeling that the system belongs to someone else?<\/p>\n
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Can a widow understand the status of her file without hiring an intermediary?<\/p>\n
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Can an overseas Pakistani obtain reliable information without travelling repeatedly to Islamabad?<\/p>\n
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Can an old affectee find out why a case has remained unresolved for years?<\/p>\n
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These are not technical questions.<\/p>\n
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They are questions of public confidence.<\/p>\n
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Muhammad Zaman Wattoo did not enter public administration yesterday. His career has included assignments in Punjab\u2019s administration and public-sector institutions. Official records show that he served as Deputy Commissioner in Bhakkar, while his professional profile records senior responsibilities including Member Board of Revenue, Secretary Food, Secretary Prosecution and Cane Commissioner.<\/p>\n
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Those assignments, however, should remain background.<\/p>\n
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His real test today is the office he occupies.<\/p>\n
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Member Estate of the CDA.<\/p>\n
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That office deals with matters in which a single entry in a record can affect an entire family. A misplaced document, an unresolved acquisition issue, a disputed entitlement or an incorrect allotment can create consequences that continue for years.<\/p>\n
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This is why digitisation alone cannot be the complete answer.<\/p>\n
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A digital record is useful only when the underlying record is correct.<\/p>\n
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An online system can make an error faster to access just as easily as it can make a correct record easier to verify.<\/p>\n
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The answer, therefore, lies somewhere between technology and human responsibility: accurate records, transparent procedures, clear timelines, accountability and decisions that can be understood by the citizen affected by them.<\/p>\n
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Islamabad has changed enormously since its foundation.<\/p>\n
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Its roads have expanded. Its sectors have multiplied. Its skyline has changed. Land that once belonged to villages has become part of one of the most important cities in Pakistan.<\/p>\n
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But development should not mean that the people who gave up their land become footnotes in the history of the city.<\/p>\n
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They are part of that history.<\/p>\n
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And their legitimate claims deserve an administrative system capable of dealing with them with patience, evidence and fairness.<\/p>\n
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This is perhaps the real opportunity before the CDA Estate Wing.<\/p>\n
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Not to promise that every old case will suddenly disappear.<\/p>\n
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Not to create expectations that the law cannot fulfil.<\/p>\n
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But to establish a system in which an old case does not remain old merely because nobody wants to touch it.<\/p>\n
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A file moving from one desk to another is movement.<\/p>\n
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It is not necessarily progress.<\/p>\n
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Progress is when a citizen finally receives an answer.<\/p>\n
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Sometimes that answer will be an allotment.<\/p>\n
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Sometimes compensation.<\/p>\n
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Sometimes correction of a record.<\/p>\n
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Sometimes a lawful rejection.<\/p>\n
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But after decades of waiting, even a clear and reasoned decision can be a form of relief.<\/p>\n
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Islamabad was built as a city looking towards the future.<\/p>\n
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For its affectees, however, the future has often remained tied to unresolved questions from the past.<\/p>\n
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Perhaps the new chapter is not about one officer alone.<\/p>\n
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Perhaps it is about whether an institution can finally close the distance between its files and the people whose lives are written inside them.<\/p>\n
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That is the larger responsibility now resting with the CDA Estate Wing under Muhammad Zaman Wattoo.<\/p>\n
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And for the affectees of Islamabad, the hope is not for promises.<\/p>\n
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It is for decisions.<\/p>\n
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Clear decisions.<\/p>\n
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Lawful decisions.<\/p>\n
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And decisions that do not require another generation to wait.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD (Sapeher Times) There are some files that become old because time passes. And there are some files that become old because justice keeps waiting. In Islamabad, thousands of families who surrendered their land for the development of the federal capital have lived with this second kind of waiting. Their land became part of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":346109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-346110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-63","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sapeher.dailysapehertimes.com.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sapeher.dailysapehertimes.com.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sapeher.dailysapehertimes.com.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sapeher.dailysapehertimes.com.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sapeher.dailysapehertimes.com.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=346110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sapeher.dailysapehertimes.com.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sapeher.dailysapehertimes.com.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/346109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sapeher.dailysapehertimes.com.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=346110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sapeher.dailysapehertimes.com.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=346110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sapeher.dailysapehertimes.com.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=346110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}