HYDERABAD: The Sindh High Court on Tuesday issued a contempt notice to the Hyderabad commissioner over non-compliance of its directives regarding maintenance of heritage properties’ status.

The high court’s Hyderabad circuit bench comprising Justice Salahuddin Panhwar and Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry will hear the matter on July 23.

The court noted that the commissioner was directed through its order dated Dec 8, 2016 to personally visit all notified protected properties falling within the ambit of the Sindh Cultural Heritage (Preservation) Act, 1949 and the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act, 1904.

No steps taken to comply with directive to ensure protection of heritage sites

It observed that despite the directive, the commissioner did not take any such step.

Issuing the notice, the bench again directed him to personally visit all properties falling within the above categories as per the list filed by the culture department in this matter.

The commissioner has also been directed to submit a detailed report within the spirit of the referred order.

He has been asked to explain that under what circumstances the auditorium of Dialdas Club — a heritage property — has been sealed.

The court had passed a 16-page order — authored by Justice Panhwar — on petitions challenging use of Dialdas Club for weddings and commercial purposes as well as a banquet hall, proposed to be developed on its premises. The petitions were filed by Tahir Khan, a member of the club, through Advocate Noor Ahmed Memon.

In his petition, Mr Khan argued that since it was a heritage property, no marriage functions could be allowed to be held and no banquet hall could be built on its premises.

He said commercial events there could not be allowed even in open spaces.

The bench had earlier ordered dismantling of new structures, including banquet hall, raised within the club for violation of the May 20, 2011 notification that had declared the site a heritage property.

While allowing the petitions, the court had declared all marriage activities at Dialdas Club illegal and against its bylaws.

The court had asked the management of the club to ensure that the premises was used only for the specific purposes as provided under its objectives.

Considering pleas of some interveners whose children’s weddings were to be held at the club in Dec 2016 and they did not have any alternative places, Justice Panhwar said that the Dec 8 order would become operative after March 31, 2017.

In that order, the court had directed the commissioner to visit all declared/notified protected properties and submit necessary report along with photographs to the quarters concerned, besides the court, through the additional registrar, stating that whether these properties were protected within the spirit of the Sindh Cultural Heritage (Preservation) Act 1994 or otherwise.

SHC had said that this process should be completed within the least practicable time, not more than two months. During such process, the commissioner was supposed to ensure that all these were protected as per the relevant act of 1994.

It had regretted failure and negligence on the part of government and its culture department, saying that “their failure and negligence is not worth appreciating as department seems to have been negligent towards objectives of its establishment which even is likely to prejudice culture”.

Justice Panhwar had said: “It is expected that in future [culture] department shall prove its existence as a functional authority and shall do everything required by laws for preserving and protecting culture”.

He said that as the quarters concerned proved to be negligent, it even resulted in the publication of the advertisement for the construction of something which materially prejudiced or harmed value of protected property.

“The [culture department’s] notification shows that in Hyderabad division as many as 67 properties are notified as protected properties but alarmingly owners/occupiers prima facie have been dealing, managing and controlling such notified properties as per their own sweet wills without any care towards heritage value thereof,” the court observed.

The judges were not inclined to accept that since construction of the banquet hall would earn a handsome income to the club, its construction be allowed.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2019