KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has directed the director general of Pakistan Rangers, Sindh to vacate the land adjacent to his official residence in Gulshan-i-Iqbal and hand over the same to the Karachi Development Authority Officers Cooperative Hosing Society.

A two-judge bench comprising Justice Zafar Ahmed Rajput and Justice Muhammad Faisal Kamal Alam observed that if the subject land was required by the Rangers chief or other government functionaries then the same should be acquired in accordance with law i.e. by paying the market value to petitioners.

It directed the KDA Officers Cooperative Housing Society to hand over the possession of the subject land to lawful and bona fide allotttees / petitioners after fulfilling codal formalities.

The bench in its order said, “Government functionaries including Respondent No.1 [DG Rangers], must realise that if their actions results in causing hardship and sufferings for citizens, as is seen in the present case, then even sacrifices given by the members of the Force would be undermined, besides, such actions would be counterproductive.”

The bench passed the directives while disposing of a petition filed in 2017 by around 20 KDA officers, who submitted that they had been allotted 200sq-yds plots at the KDA Officers Cooperative Housing Society, around KDA Inspection Bungalow, the place where Rangers DG lives, in Gulshan-i-Iqbal.

The petitioners sought directives for the paramilitary force to vacate the land in question and pleaded for physical possession of their plots.

The bench in its judgement observed that most important document was the lease deed of 1978, executed by the KDA in favour of the housing society granting an area of 30 acres in Blocks A & B and the area was further enhanced vide an addenda deed in 1983 to 36.96 acres and both were registered documents.

It further noted that official record sufficiently proved that KDA Officers Cooperative Hosing Society was the owner of leasable area of 36.96 of land including the subject land while the correspondences ex­­changed between respondents had also shown that the Inspection Bungalow was the property of the KDA.

The order stated that the Rangers chief was occupying the KDA Inspection Bungalow under permission from the KDA and Sindh government while in its comments the DG-Rangers had fairly accepted the fact that the provincial home department had allotted “KDA Inspection Bungalow” to the S&GAD on Jan 27 1999 for use as official residence of Rangers DG.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2022