KARACHI, April 18: The Sindh High Court has stayed the construction of a petrol pump allegedly encroaching on the Haweksbay Road and issued notices to the defendants for April 30 in a suit instituted by the owner of a 20-acre plot of land along the road.
Plaintiff Shahimah Sayeed alleged through her counsel, Yousuf Ali Sayeed, that the main Hawkesbay Road was notified as 300 feet in width but part of the land reserved for it had been occupied by the Pakistan Air Force for its Masroor Base. A one-kilometre stretch along the length of the boundary wall of the base encroaches into the area reserved for the road. Part of the encroached area had been given to M/s Total-Parco for setting up a petrol pump. The defence ministry is, meanwhile, learnt to have asked the provincial government for allotment of the encroached land either gratis or on a nominal rate.
Justice Maqbool Baqar, who heard the plaint, issued notices to the defendants and barred the construction of the petrol pump in the meantime.
NOTICES TO DOCTORS: The SHC office has issued notices to 12 doctors of the Liaquat National Hospital for May 10 in a suit filed by a journalist, Mohammad Kabeer. The plaintiff has claimed damages amounting to over Rs87 million for the death of his wife, Suraiya, and their still-born child due to the negligence and carelessness of the hospital management and staff.
An inquiry instituted by the provincial health secretary found the defendants responsible.
SUPREME COURT: The Supreme Court has upheld a Sindh High Court judgment reinstating 18 employees of a pharmaceutical manufacturing concern.
The employees were sacked as soon as they served notices in December 2003 on the concern’s management that they have formed a trade union. They filed grievances petitions in a labour court, which rejected them as the petitioners were not found by it to have been employed by the concern but by a contractor hiring workers on its behalf under a contract. The employees moved the SHC in an appeal and Justice Muhammad Moosa K. Leghari held that they were employees of the manufacturing concern. He set aside the labour court’s order and reinstated the appellant workers with retrospective effect.
The SHC order was challenged by the manufacturing concern in the Supreme Court. Dismissing the appeals, a three-member SC bench comprising Justice Muhammad Nawaz Abbasi, Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan and Justice M. Javed Buttar observed that the sole question for determination in the appeals was the status of the respondent employees.
The question whether they were employees of the factory or were contract employees of the contractor was a pure question of fact that had been decided by the high court in favour of the respondents after detailed scrutiny. The contention regarding the grant of back benefits also had no substance, the bench observed.
