KARACHI, Oct 14: The Sindh High Court declined on Tuesday to stay construction of the Lyari Expressway, but directed the city and provincial governments to resolve the dispute with the petitioners displaced by the project either through “private settlement” or by paying them “appropriate compensation” for the plots of land “leased out in their favour” and the construction raised thereon in accordance with the approved plans.
Partially allowing 20 petitions for detailed reasons set out in a 41-page judgment, a division bench, comprising Justices Sabihuddin Ahmed and S. Ali Aslam Jafri, observed that it was “inclined to hold that the petitioners cannot be deprived of their property except in due course of law and without payment of compensation’. Nevertheless, “keeping in view the fact that the expressway is a project of national importance being constructed in larger public interest, for which private property could always be acquired under the law, it is not inclined to pass a restraint order in exercise of the high court’s discretionary jurisdiction”.
Considering the magnitude of inconvenience and the immensity of the amount that might be payable by way of compensation, the judgment observed that the respondent governments and the National Highway Authority, which is executing the project, would be well advised to acquire only such expanse of land as might be absolutely essential for the construction of the expressway and “reconsider this aspect of the matter”.
It noted the petitioners’ plea that the expressway width could be decreased to reduce the number of affected people and that the Karachi Development Authority had initially proposed a 50-foot wide road on the banks of the river Lyari from Mauripur Bridge to Sohrab Goth.
The judgment made it clear that in cases wherein construction had been raised in violation of the Sindh Building Control Ordinance, the petitioners might only be entitled to compensation for the value of land as the unauthorized structures were liable to be demolished at the owners’ cost. It repelled the contention that the provisions of the ordinance were not applicable to katchi abadis.
It also rejected the argument that regularization of a katchi abadi was dependent on a duly approved scheme under the Sindh Katchi Abadis Act. Once an area had been notified as katchi abadi, it could not be termed “unauthorized” nor the leases in favour of the petitioners could be treated as void, whether or not an “approved scheme” had been drawn up for it.
The judgment, authored by Justice Aslam Jafri, also pointed out that a large number of affected residents who had initially moved the court had already vacated the property in their possession on receiving compensatory benefits and “further delay in the expressway construction would put a huge additional burden on the public exchequer apart from causing greater inconvenience to the public at large”.
Dealing with the issue of validity of leases, the judgment said the “allottees or grantees of land” could not be blamed for absence of anything required to be done by the competent authority. The respondent city and provincial governments could not blame the petitioners for incompetence, inefficiency or dishonesty of their officials. If their was a registered lease in existence, it had to be given full effect till such time as it was declared void by a court of competent jurisdiction.
It also noted the government’s statement that hundreds of people who voluntarily vacated the flood-prone slum areas they were living in on the river bank had been given 80-square-yard plots and Rs 50,000 each in a well-planned and developed area having all utilities and facilities. Simultaneously, an urgent need of the city for a separate 16.5-kilometre road link for thousands of heavy trucks, oil-tankers and trailers plying between Mauripur Bridge and Sohrab Goth on both banks of the river Lyari was being addressed.
Advocates Shaukat Ali Shaikh, M. Ilyas Khan, Ghulam Abbas Soomro, Khalid Javed and Amjad Ali were among the lawyers who appeared for the petitioners. Advocate-General Anwar Mansoor Khan, Additional Advocate-General Abbas Ali, AAG Sarwar Khan and Advocates Manzoor Ahmed and Shahid Jamil Khan represented the respondents.
