HYDERABAD: SHC issues notices to officials, others
By Our Correspondent
HYDERABAD, Sept 21: The Sindh High Court, Hyderabad circuit bench, on Friday issued notices to Director-General of the Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA) Altaf Memon, former director, Building Control, HDA, Masood Jumani, Director Building Control, Hameed Memon, five cellular phone dealers, director excise and taxation and land grant officer of City Taluka Municipal Administration on a public interest petition.
The court had earlier converted two applications of Mohammad Amjad into a petition. In his main petition, he cited Director Ejaz Hussain, Director Faisal Zafar and Director Awais Ahmed of United Mobile and Jamil, Iftikhar of Mobile Zone Hyderabad as respondents besides director excise and land grant officer.
The petitioner has maintained that the HDA had approved building plan of a project ‘Medina Blessings’ after taking illegal gratification which is evident from approval of half building plan while the remaining half is awaiting approval whereas, on the other hand, builder mafia has started collecting money from people and representative of Karachi-based Untied Mobile are booking cell phone shops adding that no objection certificate from respondent land grant officer of TMA for commercial project has not been submitted before the court.
He said that a street had been amalgamated in city survey-16 and construction continued despite passing of a status quo order.
The petitioner has filed applications in Urdu and in the subject of one of the applications (MA-1653/07), he has stated that United Mobile Karachi has collected millions of rupees from people for booking of shops in ground and mezzanine floors of the ‘Medina Blessings’ without obtaining permission from Building Control Department (BCD).
He said that BCD officials are involved, therefore, an inquiry should be conducted.
He said that respondent United Mobile through their representative Awais Ahmed, got 89 shops booked on ground floor, 63 on mezzanine floor while 2730 square feet area was reserved for United Mobile although complete plan is yet to be approved.
He said that when queries were made, they threatened applicant of implication in false cases and dire consequences. The applicant called for an inquiry into whole scandal and prayed the court to call complete record pertaining to HDA, mukhtiarkar, excise and taxation department and sought action against responsible officials. He said the Medina Blessings is located on 25 to 30 feet road and city survey numbers 13, 14, 15 were amalgamated so that they should be adjacent to city survey number 16. He said in city survey numbers 14 and 15 a public street is located in survey no-13.
He said that it was a government land and an inquiry needs to be conducted as to how the street was registered in the name of some private owner. The cost of registry is over Rs2.2 million while the property in question has a value of millions of rupees, he said. He prayed the court that it was an attempt to gobble up government revenue, therefore, an inquiry should be ordered.
In the second application, he said that HDA had approved a map of Bahadur Arcade on 65-feet wide road on May 2 which has a total covered area of 7038 square feet with a 6500 square feet parking area. Permission has been granted for 20 shops on first floor of the one plus four building, having 26 flats.
