KARACHI, June 7: A division bench of the Sindh High Court concluded on Saturday hearing of arguments advanced by counsel for the Hasan Aulia village residents affected by the Lyari Expressway project.

Advocate M. Ilyas Khan submitted before the bench, which consisted of Justices Sabihuddin Ahmed and S. Ali Aslam Jafri, that if his clients were declared encroachers, thousands of other residents of the locality who were not hit by the project and were not before the court would also cease to be the rightful lessees of their properties.

He said the KMC, which owned the village land, had granted 99-year leases to the petitioners.

The lease agreements, the lawyer argued, were not and could not be invalidated by subsequent enactments, including the Sindh Kutchi Abadis (Regulation and Development) Order, 1982, and the Sindh Kutchi Abadis Act of 1987.

The absence of a scheme for development of a kutchi abadi could not nullify its status as kutchi abadi.

The lessees should not suffer for the kutchi abadi directorate’s failure to prepare a scheme. Finally, no order or notification had been issued by any authority to sanction demolition of houses and shops.

The petitions would now come up for hearing on June 16 together with identical petitions from residents of other affected areas for final arguments by the petitioners’ counsel and the advocate- general.