KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has issued notices on a petition seeking resolution of a dispute over a playground in North Nazimabad.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi directed the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and others to file a report about the status of the land in question.

The principal of Government Girls College North Nazimabad, through her lawyer moved the SHC stating that the ground in question belonged to the college and the Sarfraz Ahmed Academy was illegally running a cricket club on it.

The counsel submitted that the ground was an amenity land as per the master plan and pleaded for removal of what he called encroachments from it.

On March 16, former captain of the Pakistan cricket team Sarfraz Ahmed had also petitioned the SHC stating that the ground belonged to the Sarfraz Ahmed Academy.

The bench clubbed both the petitions together for a joint hearing on a date to be fixed after four weeks.

Earlier, the bench had directed the authorities not to create any hindrance in the use of the cricket ground by the academy.

It had also issued notices to the land utilisation department, KMC, director colleges, college principal and other respondents as well as the advocate general.

His lawyer Arshad Tayebaly had argued that former captain along with other members were active in running the operations of the academy to provide cricket coaching facilities to local neighbourhood.

He stated that the then mayor of Karachi had given the ground to the petitioner in 2017 after he achieved victory for Pakistan in ICC Champions Trophy-2017.

However, he alleged that the college management took over the ground after demolishing the iron grills and started parking their vehicles there.

While referring to an interview of the Karachi administrator, the counsel submitted that the allegations against the former captain of illegally occupying a part of the college did not hold any weight.

He stated that the college was inaugurated three years after the subject ground was handed over to the petitioner by the competent authority.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2022