KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Friday granted protective bail to seven former and serving officials of the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) in a case pertaining to allotment of extra land, illegal conversion and approval of the building plan of Nasla Tower.

A single-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Saleem Jessar allowed protective pre-arrest bail for seven days subject to furnishing solvent surety of Rs50,000 each.

It directed the applicants to surrender before the trial court within the stipulated period as the protective bail would cease to have its effect on Jan 27.

SBCA officials including Ashkar Dawar, Ali Mehdi Kazmi, Farhan Qaiser, Khawaja Badi-uz-Zaman and Ali Ghufran filed bail pleas before the SHC.

The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) had registered a case against 21 former and serving officials of the SBCA and others in the Nasla Tower case in the light of the order passed by the apex court.

The FIR said that the management of the Sindhi Muslim Cooperative Housing Society (SMCHS) in connivance with the owner of the plot, Muzamil Amin Darzi, issued a letter for allotment of 264 square yard extra land in 2006-7 and the master plan group of offices illegally converted the land from residential to commercial for 1,044 square yards without proper title documents of the plot as sub-lease of plot was only for 780 square yards while the layout plan was also of 780 square yards only.

The SBCA approved the no-objection certificate and building plan in 2013-14 without revision of the area in the layout plan and also facilitated the builder to raise construction in violation of the approved building plan and construction was completed in 2016, it added.

Last month, the apex court had ordered the police and ACE to separately register cases against owners of the building, officials concerned of the SBCA, SMCHS and other government departments for giving approval in violation of the law.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2022