KARACHI: Notice in KBCA’s plea on plot status case
By Our Reporter
KARACHI, March 26: The Sindh High Court has issued pre-admission notice for March 28 to the parties in a High Court appeal against a single judge order in which a plea of the Karachi Building Control Authority pertaining to the status of a plot and its master plan had been declared untenable.
A division bench, comprising chief Justice of the Sindh High Court, Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad, and Justice Ghulam Rabbani, also directed the parties concerned to maintain status quo.
The bench passed the order when a CMA and stay application filed by counsel Mohammed Ikram Siddiqui on behalf of Brig Dr Zafar Malik (retd), Chief Controller of Buildings, KBCA, and Mohammed Zubair, Deputy Controller of Buildings, Zone XXIX, KBCA, came up. Mohammed Sharif, advocate, represented Syed Khalid Husain, one of the 10 respondents.
The CMA was filed against the order of Justice Shabbir Ahmed of the SHC, who had held that the KBCA’s plea that in spite of treating the plot by the Court residential-cum-commercial, the NOC from the KDA was necessary as the master plan had to be modified, was not tenable.
Justice Ahmed had held this in a CMA in suit No 290 of 1991 filed by Mrs Wasimur Rahman.
It was the case of the plaintiff in the CMA that the impugned order was passed behind their back. Their counsel had submitted that they were not even party to the suit, and without hearing them an adverse order against them had been illegally and unlawfully passed.
He had contended that the status of the property in question was not residential cum commercial, but only residential. It was his contention that the single judge had committed gross error while passing the order dated Feb 25, by directing the KBCA to approve the proposed building plan of residential cum commercial because status of the plot had not been decided by the single judge in his order dated Feb 21, 2001.
After hearing counsel for the parties, Justice Ahmed in his order had noted that the only objection taken by the counsel for the KBCA was that in spite of treating the plot by the Court as residential cum commercial, the NOC from the KDA was necessary as the master plan had to be modified, treating the residential plot as residential cum commercial.
He had held that the plea was not tenable, once the Court had already treated the plot as residential cum commercial and the order had attained finality up to the Supreme Court, thus the KBCA’s refusal would amount to contempt. Once the Court had treated the plot as residential cum commercial, the plan had to be approved/treated it as residential cum commercial, Justice Ahmed had held.
In the CMA, the KBCA has prayed for setting aside the above-mentioned order of the single judge in CMA No 9068/2001 which had treated plot No F-1, Rifah-i-Aam Cooperative Society, Malir Halt, as residential cum commercial and directed the appellants for approval of plan submitted by the respondent No 10 in respect of the above-mentioned plot, and in non-compliance with the aforesaid direction had held the above-named appellants responsible for committing contempt of court.
NOTICE TO AG: Another division bench, consisting of Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Ali Aslam Jaferi, put the Advocate-General Sindh on notice for April 5 in a constitutional petition filed by Wali Mohammed Sial, and restrained the respondents from appointing any person in place of the petitioner.
The petitioner, represented by counsel Mohammad Nawaz Shaikh, reached the superannuation age of 60 years and stood retired on March 20, 2000. He was re- employed on contract for two years.
