KARACHI : SHC allows setting up of fair price market
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Sept 14: The Sindh High Court allowed on Friday a petition for the establishment of a fair price market during Ramazan in Landhi subject to the payment of the necessary fee by the organisers to the Landhi town municipal administration.
The Bachat Bazaar Association complained in its petition that it had been allowed by the city government to set up a market during Ramazan for the sale of goods at ‘reduced’ rates. However, the Landhi Town authorities had been reluctant to allow it to make arrangements.
Representing the city government, Advocate Manzoor Ahmed said that the city government’s permission had been subjected to the payment of the requisite fee to the town administration. The petitioner had not paid the dues, compelling the administration to drag its feet over the issue. The court asked the association to pay the fee and set up the bachat bazaar.
Commissioner named
The Sindh High Court on Friday appointed a commissioner and tasked him with inspecting an Orangi Town katchi abadi and submitting a report on its demolition by the city government despite a stay earlier granted by the court, adds PPI.
The SHC division bench comprising Justices Sarmad Jalal Usmani and Ali Sain Dino Metlo was hearing a petition filed by Mohammad Qayum Khan, Muhammad Saleem and 153 residents of Gulshan-i-Zia Colony.
According to the petitioners, their colony, comprising about 600 residential units, was being demolished by the city government.
Filing a contempt of court application, their counsel, Aftab Alam Malik, stated that despite a stay granted by the SHC on July 25, 2007, the city government was still demolishing houses in the area. He requested the court to not only restrain the city government from further demolishing houses but also initiate contempt proceedings against officers he accused of willfully ignoring the court order.
The SHC division bench appointed a commissioner to inspect the site and adjourned the case for a date in office.
The petitioners argued that they had been living in the colony before 1980 with the consent of the local government. They purchased plots measuring 120 and 240 square yards from private persons who had developed the area in 1977-78.
In 1991, the local government, after conducting a survey, divided the colony into four parts and made arrangements for its regularization. But, later, it approved only two parts for regularization and declared parts II & IV as katchi abadis and started demolition of houses after declaring them illegal.
The petitioners’ counsel averred that his clients had not occupied plots in the colony but had actually purchased them and were waiting for regularization by the city government according to the Sindh Katchi Abadies Act 1987. They also got legal water, electricity, gas and telephone connections from the departments concerned after getting NOCs from the local government.
He said that despite having legal possession, the city government was not regularizing plots and, with mala fide intentions, demolishing them.
