KARACHI, Sept 6: The Sindh High Court ordered the Karachi Building Control Authority on Tuesday to demolish ‘all unauthorized construction’ near the Hill Park in the Memon Cooperative Housing Society.

The order was passed by a division bench after perusal of a report submitted by an architect in pursuance of an earlier order.

The architect was commissioned through the official assignee in the course of proceedings on a petition moved by (the late) Ms Amnabai, later substituted by her son, Yaqoob Muhammad Suleman.

The petitioner, owner of plot number 208 in the housing society, complained that owners of adjacent plot 209 had illegally occupied parts of her plot.

The KBCA confirmed that the petitioner’s plot had been partly encroached upon but alleged that the petitioner herself was guilty of similar encroachment on public land, including space reserved for road. It said it could not demolish the violative structures because of resistance put up by the owners and their sympathizers.

The petitioner’s boundary wall was, however, razed. The statement led to a spate of allegations and counter-allegations and ultimately the court decided to commission an architect to ascertain the correct position.

The architect said in his report that Dilshad Alam, owner of plot number 207, had encroached upon 399.58 square yards, thereby increasing the size of his plot from 560 square yards to 959.58 square yards. Shakoor Abdullah, owner of plot number 209, has unauthorizedly added 178.93 square yards to his 970-square-yard plot.

The petitioner, owner of plot number 208, had, meanwhile, lost 133.11 square yards that formed part of her plot. The architect thus upheld the petitioner’s claim and belied the KBCA contention.

Taking on record the reports of the architect and the official assignee, the bench directed the KBCA ‘to carry out demolition of all unauthorized constructions raised in violation of the approved building plans’.

The authority was asked to ‘take assistance from the city district government staff/officials for removal of encroachments from the road area’.

If the respondent plot owners have any lawful title over the allegedly encroached area in excess of their entitlement or if they have approved plans for the construction existing at site, the bench observed, ‘such documents can be shown to the concerned officials of the KBCA/ city district government’.