KARACHI: The Special Anti-Corruption (Provincial) Court on Friday issued a notice to the special public prosecutor to advance arguments on post-arrest bail applications of former Sindh Building Control Authority director general Manzoor Qadir Kaka and ex-Jamshed Town mukhtiarkar Khair Muhammad Dahiri in the Nasla Tower case.

Judge Muhammad Ahsan Khan Durrani will take up the matter on Aug 9.

Last week, the court had revoked interim pre-arrest bail of Kaka and Dahiri and sent them to prison on judicial remand.

On Friday, both the suspects moved their applications seeking grant of post-arrest bail to them.

Barrister Iftikhar Ahmed Shah argued that his client, Manzoor Kaka, was on ex-Pakistan leave and was not aware of the pendency of the present case against him, which was originally a dispute of land allotment between the defunct Karachi Development Authority (KDA) and the Sindhi Muslim Cooperative Housing Society (SMCHS).

Kaka has nothing to do with allotment of additional land for Nasla Tower, court told

He submitted that initially the KDA had allotted 780 square yards of land to the SMCHS back in 1957, adding that later the society had sold the land to Nasla Tower’s private owner, who had later purchased additional land in 1980s.

He further submitted that in 2010 the Nasla Tower’s owner had purchased 77 square yards additional land from its private owner Muhammad Ameen against a payment of Rs5 million.

Barrister Shah said that the owner had in 2006-07 applied to the Karachi Master Plan Department for commercialisation of the land, which was allowed.

He argued that Kaka, being the then director general of the SBCA, had nothing to do with the allotment of the additional land for Nasla Tower, as it had already been done by the KDA and SMCHS.

Secondly, the counsel argued that 17 co-accused in the case had already been granted bail. Therefore, the applicant may also be granted this relief on the basis of rule of consistency, as permissible under the law.

In March this year, the court had indicted 18 people, including then SBCA officers and office-bearers of the SMCHS in a case pertaining to encroachment upon a thoroughfare, where the now demolished Nasla Tower was illegally built in 2013.

The 15-storey commercial-cum-residential building on Sharea Faisal was demolished on the directives of the Supreme Court for having been built in violation of laws.

Another former SBCA director general, Ashkar Dawar, has also been booked in the case.

Published in Dawn, Aug 5th, 2023