KARACHI: Playground’s conversion into shopping plaza stayed
By Shujaat Ali Khan
KARACHI, Aug 24: The Sindh High Court stayed on Friday conversion of the five-acre Webb playground in the Lines Area and issued notices in a petition challenging it for Aug 28.
The advocate-general and non-governmental organization Shehri were also issued notices by a division bench consisting of Justices Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Ali Sain Dino Metlo.
The respondents issued notices are: the city district government, the Lines Area redevelopment project, the Karachi Building Control Authority, the provincial environment secretary, the Army Welfare Trust, and Makro-Habib Pakistan Limited.
Petitioner-lawyer Mahfoozun Nabi Khan submitted that there was shortage of parks and playgrounds in Karachi but nowhere more acute than in the Lines Area. The entire population of 250,000 residents — the neighborhood now known as Gulshan-i-Zahoor — has no open space except Webb playing field where students, youth and children play cricket, football and other sports.
The locality, he emphasized, consists of residential plots of 45 square yards with only 14 feet wide streets. It is highly congested and stands in greater need of parks and ground.
However, the respondents were bent upon depriving the locality of its only ground. The ground had recently been forcibly occupied by the Army Welfare Trust and their lessee, M/s Makro Habib, in connivance with the city district government to convert the ground into a prestigious commercial complex. The commercialization would adversely affect the environment not only of the Lines Area but also of the adjoining areas. There was no efficacious remedy except to invoke the writ jurisdiction of the high court.
Besides recreational and environmental consideration, the ground being an old amenity plot cannot be converted into a commercial complex under the law declared by successive judgments of superior courts. Columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee and the NGO Shehri were supporting the residents’ struggle to protect and preserve the playground but an urgent judicial order was essential to pre-empt the respondents from doing an irreversible harm. He moved a stay application in the petition and issuing notices for Aug 28, the division bench ordered the respondents to maintain status quo in the meantime.
The bench said in its order: “Prima facie, it appears that there is a playground known as ‘Webb Ground’ located in the Lines Area which perhaps has been sought to be commercialized by the CDGK. In the circumstances of the case, we would direct the respondents to maintain the status quo”.
