LEARNING ALLIANCE (PRIVATE) LIMITED vs PROVINCE OF PUNJAB through Secretary Housing, Urban Development and PHE

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LEARNING ALLIANCE (PRIVATE) LIMITED VS PROVINCE OF PUNJAB through Secretary Housing, Urban Development and PHED S.28---Constitution of Pakistan, Art.199---Constitutional petition---Rates and fees---Commercialization fee---Quantum---Petitioners were aggrieved of levy of conversion fee at the rate of 20% of commercial value of property---Validity---No basis were available to justify rates and there was no accountability for money collected as fee and where it was spent---Such was against good governance and it required a public body to be transparent and declare its costs and use of fees collected---For fee to be levied to cover costs under S.28 of Lahore Development Authority Act, 1975, it had to declare the costs, the development and maintenance works required or undertaken to recover the costs---Provisions of S.28 of Lahore Development Authority Act, 1975 could not be used as a ways and means of generating revenue to undertake projects which were made under the garb of general development and improvement---Lahore Development Authority had a specific mandate to plan and coordinate with government agencies for preparing a master plan to develop, operate, maintain water supply, sewerage, drainage with WASA and to plan annually for development programs and maintain planning controls and building regulations---Purpose of levying a conversion fee had to be such that Lahore Development Authority would fulfill its mandate and made necessary disclosures and declarations---High Court declared that levy of conversion fee at the rate of 20% of commercial value of property was without any justification and against requirements of S.28 of Lahore Development Authority Act, 1975---High Court directed that demand notices raised and public advertisement issued in newspapers could not form basis to collect conversion fee from an area which was already declared commercial---For the purpose of S.28 of Lahore Development Authority Act, 1975, where Lahore Development Authority was to raise adequate funds to meet the cost of planning, expansion, execution, development, re-development, maintenance, zoning, classification, re-classification, augmentation, supervision, regulation and conversion of any property in any present or future scheme, it was to declare the cost so incurred, which it was to recover in the form of a fee with full disclosure of all amounts spent on development and expansion projects and schemes to maintain good governance and transparency and to establish need to meet the costs for the fee that it had imposed---Constitutional petition was allowed accordingly.

LEARNING ALLIANCE (PRIVATE) LIMITED vs PROVINCE OF PUNJAB through Secretary Housing, Urban Development and PHED S — 2022 CLC 793 LAHORE-HIGH-COURT-LAHORE

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