KARACHI, July 25: The Sindh High Court dismissed as withdrawn a petition against the detention of Abdul Rehman Baloch alias Rehman Dakait, an alleged gangster of Lyari on Tuesday. As the petition came before a bench comprising Justices Mushir Alam and Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui, the petitioner’s counsel, Omer Sial, submitted that he had instructions from his client, Ms Zubeda, Rehman Baloch’s maternal aunt, to withdraw the petition. The bench dismissed the petition as withdrawn.
The petitioner had stated in her petition that Rehman Baloch was arrested by a Karachi police party in Quetta on June 18. He had neither been produced before a magistrate for remand nor shown to have been arrested in a case.
According to her, he had been handed over to a law enforcement agency and shifted to Islamabad. The petitioner feared for her nephew’s safety. She requested the court to record the statement of another accused who was arrested along with Rehman Baloch but the police contested the plea as it would prejudice the trial of the offence. Three police officials said to have picked up the detainee in Quetta earlier denied his custody.
INSPECTION ORDERED: The Sindh High Court ordered on Monday inspection of a Tariq Road plot being used for the construction of a commercial project by its owners and issued the Karachi Building Control Authority a notice in their petition for August 1.
The plot (No 37, Delhi Muslim Co-operative Housing Society) on the main Tariq Road was commercialised along with the rest of the neighbourhood under a notification issued by the provincial government on July 20, 1998. The notification commercialised the entire Tariq Road up to Bahadarabad in terms of Article 40 (1) of the KDA Order of 1957 envisaging a zonal plan scheme.
Disposing of a petition in December 2003, a division bench declared that when an area had been notified commercial, plot owners did not need specific approval of the KBCA for change of land use. They were only required to have their building plans sanctioned by the authority.
Hawa Bai and her son and attorney, owners of the plot in the instant case, stated that they were constructing a commercial project, named Jumaira Shopping Mall, on their commercialised premises in accordance with the notification of 1998 as interpreted by the 2003 SHC judgment and after approval of its design by the KBCA. Yet they were being harassed by KBCA officials.
Appearing on a notice sent by the petitioners’ counsel, Ashraf Ali Butt, KBCA counsel Shahid Jamil Khan said he received the notice only on July 21 and required time to make detailed comments. However, according to his instructions, a plan was submitted by the petitioners and sanctioned by the authority. The building was being raised in conformity with the plan and there was neither violation by the petitioners nor harassment by the KBCA or its functionaries. However, a case involving the plot was being prosecuted by the Anti-Corruption Establishment and the petitioners might be facing difficulties on that account.
The petitioners offered to have their structure inspected and a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Maqbool Baqar asked an SHC deputy registrar to visit the site and report violations, if any. The LBCA was served notice for August 1.
