HYDERABAD: The Hyd­e­rabad circuit bench of the Sindh High Court has ordered special secretary of Sindh local government department, Sindh Building Con­trol Authority and Hyd­erabad Development Auth­ority to provide copies of relevant record to civil administration to help it ensure anti-encroachment drive after the officers concerned complained lack of cooperation by other institutions.

The bench comprising Justices Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro and Adnanul Karim Memon also directed regional director of the SBCA and head of HDA to cooperate with deputy commissioner and share with him copies of record whenever the officer required them for taking action against encroachments.

It also directed focal person of Sindh secretary of finance to appear in the court and respond to Hyderabad Municipal Corporation’s (HMC) complaints that funds were not released for carrying out anti encroachment drive.

Finance secretary summoned to respond to DC’s complaint

The bench passed these directions while hearing two identical petitions about encroachments and adjourned the case to Dec 23, according to the court order issued on Saturday.

Hyderabad deputy commissioner Fuad Ghaffar Soomro informed the court that results of the anti encroachment drive as desired by Sindh High Court had not been achieved due to certain hiccups and problems.

He explained that removal of soft encroachment was responsibility of local government department, municipal committees and corporations. A distinction should be drawn between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ encroachments, he said.

The court confronted officers of HMC and Qasimabad municipal committee with the DC’s assertion and they undertook to carry out the operation on a daily basis to remove soft encroachments from designated areas.

They were directed by the court to coordinate with the DC and identify areas where any government or public property had been encroached upon by any individual and remove it in compliance with this court and Supreme Court’s orders.

HMC’s municipal commissioner said that encroachments had been removed from Khokhar Mohallah and the drive was still going on. He undertook that encroachments, if any, would be removed within the shortest possible time.

The bench directed the DC to carry out operation against encroachments in Hyderabad and submit report to the court after cleaning the areas. The drive be launched in surrounding areas afterwards, said the court.

The court noted lack of coordination between dep­art­ments concerned was leading to failures and directed heads of the departments concerned to liaise with the DC to make the drive successful. The police officer directed SHOs to keep an eye on ‘soft’ encroachment in their.

Additional DC Lal Dino Mangi informed the court that whenever municipale bodies were approached for obtaining master plan and other required documents to identify the encroached areas they flatly refused to hand them the record. This was the reason, he said, the drive was not proceeding ahead and producing results.

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2021