KARACHI, Jan 8: The Sindh High Court asked the petitioners occupying land required for the construction of the Lyari Expressway project on Monday to vacate it by the first week of February.

About 22 people had moved a petition through Advocate Ghulam Qadir Jatoi complaining that their plots were being acquired for the expressway project without compensation.

They claimed that they were lawful sub-lessees of the plots and requested the court to restrain the city district government and the expressway project not to evict them from their property without payment of compensation at the market rate.

Contesting the petition, city government counsel Manzoor Ahmed submitted that 11 of the petitioners had already been compensated in accordance with an order passed and formula laid down by the high court while disposing of a number of identical petitions in 2002.

He said the petitioners had failed to produce any document whatsoever evidencing their title to the property in question.

In the absence of any lease or sub-lease they could only be treated as illegal occupants and encroachers yet the city government has paid them compensation in terms of the high court order.

A division bench comprising Justices Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Sajjad Ali Shah asked the city government to dispose of all applications for compensation in accordance with law as directed by the court in its order of 2002.

The issue of inadequacy of compensation would be decided in due course but the petitioners must vacate the land by the first week of February as ‘sufficient time has already lapsed’.

BAIL GRANTED: Justice Saiyed Zawwar Hussain Jaffery, meanwhile, granted bail to two accused booked under Section 22 (b) of the Emigration Ordinance in the sum of Rs200,000 each.