KARACHI: CM has no power to allot industrial plots: AAG
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Aug 20: The chief minister has no authority to allot industrial plots developed by the Karachi Development Authority, Additional Advocate-General Qazi Khalid Ali submitted before Justice Zia Perwez of the Sindh High Court on Wednesday.
Contesting a suit filed by Syed Zia Abbas and Sons (Pvt) Limited against alleged cancellation of four industrial plots allotted to Samina Zia, wife of NPP leader Zia Abbas, in 1991, the AAG stated that under the KDA rules, the authority had set up an industrial plots allotment committee to process applications of industrialists seeking plots. Any recommendation made by the committee had to be finally approved by the KDA governing body.
The company has instituted a suit through Barrister Kamal Azfar, asserting that the plots were allotted in 1991 and a 99-year lease agreement was subsequently executed. The allottees could not be deprived of their vested rights.
According to the rejoinder filed by the KDA, the Sindh government constituted a committee in the year 2001 to scrutinize allotments made from 1990 and 1996. Four industrial plots numbering 145, 146,147 and 148 measuring about 1,000 square yards each were allotted to Mrs Samina Zia in 1991 by the then chief minister, who had no power under the rules to make allotment of industrial plots. Nevertheless, a 99-year lease was executed in favour of the company, of which the allottee was one of the directors.
The scrutiny committee constituted by the provincial government found that the disputed plots were allotted not only in relaxation of the rules but also by circumventing the procedure prescribed for the purpose. The allotment orders were accordingly suspended or ‘frozen’.
The court framed four issues to be decided by it in the suit and adjourned further proceedings to September 16. The issues are: whether the CM was competent to order allotment of the disputed plots to an individual? What is the effect of the subsequent lease of the plots in favour of a company or body corporate? Whether the suspension or ‘freeze’ took place on the orders of the provincial government and, if so, what should the decree be?
LIQUIDATION CASE: A privatized chemicals manufacturing concern, which has been lying idle since 2000, was on Wednesday put on notice of a petition for its liquidation by its employee shareholders.
Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali of the Sindh High Court issued the notice to Sind Alkalis Limited for Sept 17 on the winding up petition moved by 35 workers through Advocate Noor Naz Agha under Sections 305, 309 and 311 of the Companies Ordinance.
The petitioners maintained that the company’s workers acquired its 33 per cent shares on its privatization in 1992. Established in 1960 and taken over in the seventies, the company continued to yield sizable profits for a couple of years after its privatization. However, the directors started showing losses in 1994 and suspended production in 2000. The workers owe the company about Rs490 million.
They said the company was unable to discharge its debt and other liabilities and its already depleted assets might be misappropriated by those in authority. To safeguard the workers’ investment, the petitioners requested the court to appoint a liquidator to take charge of its affairs and wind it up as required by the law.
