KARACHI, March 10: The Sindh High Court has allowed a petition against conversion of a plot in Mohammad Ali Johar Society from residential to commercial. A resident of the society submitted through Advocate S. Iqbal Haider that residential plot number 44-A, measuring 2,000 square yards, was ‘surreptitiously’ bifurcated into two plots measuring 1444 square yards and 555 squate yards or thereabout and renumbered 44-A and 44-A/1, respectively.
Plot 44-A/1 was commercialised in March 1992 by the federal works ministry on the basis of a no-objection certificate issued by the Karachi Development Authority (since merged into the city district government) in 1991. A seven-storey complex consisting of shops and apartments was approved by the Karachi Building Control Authority. The builder-developer also obtained sanction for sale of the shops and flats.
Allowing the petition, a division bench comprising Justices Mushir Alam and Azizullah M. Memon held that the conversion of the sub-divided plot without following the procedure prescribed by the Karachi Building and Town Planning Regulations and the Sindh Town Planning Act was unlawful. Any superstructure built on an illegal foundation could also not be sustained, it observed.
CONTEMPT CASE: Another builder-developer is to withdraw a contempt application filed by him against the KBCA under a compromise reached during proceedings in the Supreme Court. The builder was issued a show cause notice for amalgamating four plots on Shahrah-i-Faisal, Tipu Sultan Road and adjacent by-lanes and designing a commercial complex on the merged plot.
The developer sued the KBCA for contempt saying that its show cause notice was issued in contravention of an SHC order requiring the authority to sanction his plan without waiting for city district government’s approval.
The KBCA counsel, Shahid Jamil Khan, said the amalgamation and commercialisation of big plots situated on different roads, only one of which had been declared commercial, was an illegality that could not be cured by any sanction or approval. When the SHC suspended its show cause notice, the KBCA approached the Supreme Court. A four-member SC bench disposed of the KBCA’s petition in terms of the respondent builder’s assurance that he would withdraw his contempt application from the high court.
APPEAL MOVED: A convict sentenced to death for murder of Pakistan Steel chairman Sajjad Hussain has moved an appeal in the high court through Advocate Azizullah Shaikh and N.M. Saheto.
Mohammad Khan Chachar was accused of firing fatal shots on Mr Hussain, the only witness in a PS reference against PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari, near a DHA Phase II bungalow while he was returning from the Defence Club at 9.50pm on September 11, 1998. Co-accused Zulfikar Ali Mirza and Dr Nisar Ahmed were declared absconders and Mr Zardari was acquitted by the trial sessions court for want of evidence. Chachar was convicted.
The trial court awarded death penalty by way of qisas but also ordered the convict to pay diyat to the heirs of the deceased. The appellant’s counsel said the impugned judgment was not in accordance with the law. There was no ocular or circumstantial evidence and the appellant has been convicted only on the basis of a statement he gave to the police.
