03 October 2004	Sunday	17 Shaban 1425

KARACHI, Oct 2: The Sindh High Court issued on Saturday a notice to the advocate-general in a Karachi Building Control Authority application against withdrawal of a provincial government notification requiring a KBCA no-objection certificate for registration of sale and lease deeds in respect of immovable property.

A division bench, comprising Justices Sabihuddin Ahmed and Khilji Arif Hussain, heard the KBCA counsel, Shahid Jamil Khan, in chamber, granted his plea for an urgent hearing and issued the notice for Oct 5.

The counsel submitted that the notification for KBCA no- objection certificate was issued by the provincial board of revenue on May 5 in pursuance of an SHC order, which was still in force. It was withdrawn by the board on Sept 21.

The order was passed by a division bench to give effect to Sections 6 (2) and 12 of the Sindh Building Control Ordinance, 1979, in order to protect the innocent purchasers of flats, plots and other property from deception by unscrupulous builders and developers.

Section 6(2) of the SBCO, the counsel said, mandated the sellers and purchasers of immovable property in Karachi to obtain completion and occupancy certificates from the KBCA before executing any transaction.

Certain builders sold violative structures to innocent purchasers without obtaining the completion and occupancy certificates and the transactions were registered by property registration officials. The purchasers suffered when the unauthorized construction was challenged or the KBCA declined to issue the certificates due to violations.

The law, he argued, was so strict that under Section 12 of the SBCO, no building or apartment could be offered for sale through advertizement in the media without the KBCA approval. The SHC order, therefore, barred the registration of property transactions without a no-objection certificate from the authority. The notification issued in pursuance of the order had been withdrawn without there being any change in the legal position, he maintained.

CITY GOVT-KBCA ROW: The row between the city district government and the KBCA intensified on Friday with the latter alleging that undue interference by the city government officers threatened to paralyze it.

In an application in a writ petition moved by a non-governmental organization before a division bench, comprising Justices Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Maqbool Baqar, the KBCA said according to successive SHC judgments, only the city nazim had been declared 'the authority' for the purpose of Section 4 of the SBCO. In all other respects, the KBCA was declared a separate entity independent of the CDGK. It was a statutory body with a permanent seal and perpetual succession.

While the city nazim could supervise its working in his capacity as 'authority', the application said, the CDGK as an institution or its individual officers had no business to meddle in the KBCA affairs. The applicant sought a restraint order against the city government and the division bench issued a notice to the respondent for Oct 14.

The DCO said in his statement in another petition that the KBCA had no existence except as a group of the city government.

The group, known as the Building Control Group of Offices, was created by the provincial government in April. The chief controller of buildings, earlier designated as chief executive of the KBCA, had been redesignated as executive district officer (building control) of the CDGK by the notification.

The statement would come up for consideration when a division bench, comprising Justices Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Maqbool Baqar, would take up the KBCA plea for import of advanced demolition equipment on Oct 14.