KARACHI: Sindh govt told to settle KBCA, city govt row
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Dec 17: The Sindh High Court gave the provincial government three months to try a provisional arrangement worked out by it to ensure coordination between the city district government and the Karachi Building Control Authority in curbing the violation of building rules and regulations.
Advocate-General Anwar Mansoor produced a notification issued by the CDGK’s district coordination officer purporting to give effect to a meeting held under the provincial governor’s chairmanship. It said the police force available with the defunct KMC and KDA shall be part of the CDGK police station providing support in its anti-encroachment operations and assisting the KBCA in its operations against unauthorized constructions. The force would work under “the law and CDGK policy”, it said.
KBCA counsel Shahid Jamil Khan expressed the apprehension that the notification was merely intended to delay court proceedings. It was issued on Dec 12 but claimed to implement decisions of a meeting held on Dec 15. The meeting was actually held on Nov 15. The meeting had recommended outright transfer of the KMC-KDA police station to the KBCA and the merger of the CDGK anti-encroachment cell into the authority’s demolition squad for three months. The city and town nazims and the CDGK were not cooperating with the KBCA despite court orders and the notification was misleading, he maintained.
The notification was produced in proceedings on a writ petition in which an SHC division bench, comprising Justices Sabihuddin Ahmed and Amir Hani Muslim, had ordered demolition of illegal structures raised on three plots in Lyari Town.
The court had directed the police and the CDGK to provide assistance to the KBCA in discharging its statutory obligations. However, the police and the CDGK dragged their feet and the authority expressed its inability to comply with the court order.
The bench noted the reservations and apprehensions expressed by the KBCA counsel about the CDGK notification but gave the government three months to demonstrate the efficacy of the arrangement stipulated by it. The petition was adjourned to April 6 when the court would assess the working of the three-month arrangement.
Meanwhile, another petition moved by the Karachi Building Control Authority for its empowerment by amending the Sindh Building Control Ordinance, 1979, was also adjourned to April 6 to give the government a fair chance to ensure success of the arrangement. The authority was, meanwhile, allowed to seek assistance not only from the KDA-KMC police station but also from the police stations in whose jurisdiction the unauthorized constructions were raised in order to “give effect to court orders”.
HOUSING SOCIETIES: The city government accepted its liability to refund over Rs 40 million owed by the defunct Karachi Development Authority to three cooperative housing societies.
The amount was paid by the housing societies in the late 1980s but no land was allotted to them. The KDA did not either agree to refund the amount. The societies approached the Sindh High Court, which first got the liability determined by the provincial government and subsequently asked the KDA to make the payment. The KDA property was ordered to be attached and sold by Dec 17.
However, a city government official appeared before a division bench seized of the societies’ petition and assured it on behalf of the KDA that the process of refund was under way and payment would be made by Dec 23. Justices Sabihuddin Ahmed and Amir Hani Muslim, who constituted the bench, adjourned further hearing till that date.
