KARACHI, March 7: The Sindh High Court summoned on Friday the military estate officer to explain the status of the land around a shrine in PNS Karsaz on April 9.

The shrine’s custodian has moved a petition against the eviction of some occupants and demolition of their houses in the area. He claimed that the dispossessed residents had been allowed by certain naval officers to occupy the land in the 1980s.

Assisting the court, Deputy Attorney-General Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui submitted that the land belonged to the federal government and even if the petitioner’s claim was accepted, naval officers had no authority to allot it or allow anybody to occupy it. The petition was not maintainable as the dispossessed residents were mere trespassers or encroachers and had no right to invoke the constitutional jurisdiction of the high court.

A division bench, comprising Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice S. Aslam Ali Jafri, asked the military estate officer and the executive officer, Karsaz, to explain the status of the disputed land as it obtained in 1982 when it was allegedly allowed to be occupied and in the year 2002 when it was cleared of encroachments.

Justice Zahid Kurban Alavi restrained an estate agency’s alleged owners from dealing in the property of the Architects and Engineers Cooperative Housing Society in Gulistan-i-Jauhar.

The Society had complained in a suit that seven people claiming themselves to be heirs of the deceased proprietor of Gul Estate and Construction Company were selling and allotting plots in the housing society and had already recovered Rs54.20 million from the allottees. The heirs or their agents had no authority to deal in the property and they should be asked to refund the amount to the Society.

Restraining the defendants, the court asked them to appear before it on March 19 and answer the allegations.

Aneesa Farooqui: A division bench of the Sindh High Court allowed on Friday appeals of Aneesa Farooqui, wife of former chairman of the Pakistan Steel Mills, and her daughter Sharmila Farooqui and permitted them to go abroad for treatment, adds PPI.

The bench comprised Justice Mohammed Roshan Essani and Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali.

Raza Ali Hashmi, on behalf of the petitioners, submitted that Aneesa Farooqui, a heart patient, wanted to go abroad for treatment along with her daughter, as the latter would look after her. He stated that their names had been put on the ECL and they were not allowed to go abroad.