KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has summoned the head of Cantonment Board Clifton (CBC) asking him to file a report with regard to restoration of a park in Defence Housing Authority.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi directed either the chief executive officer or deputy CEO of CBC to appear in court on Feb 28 along with a compliance report regarding removal of encroachments on the premises of a park in the light of the directives of the Supreme Court.

The bench in its order said that the petitioner’s lawyer referred to an apex court’s order passed in 2018 about restoration of South Park in Phase II of DHA.

The petitioner had approached the apex court impugning a 2017 judgement of the SHC which had dismissed a petition seeking restoration of the park and the apex court had directed CBC to only maintain the water purification plant and shelter of a caretaker on an specified area of 1,100 square feet of the park.

The SHC bench said that after the apex court order, the court nazir had inspected the park and filed a statement along with the report of an architect engineer while the CBC also filed reports.

However, the lawyer for the petitioner objected to the reports of CBC stating that as per the report of the architect, container shelter was covering 747 square feet of the park, water purification plants 342 and water storage tank 907 square feet.

He submitted that the area constructed on the park premises exceeded 1,000 square feet.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2022