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KARACHI, Feb 22: The City district government is empowered to license the installation of billboards at appropriate sites and also to recover licence fee from the outdoor advertisers in accordance with the relevant rules, the Sindh High Court declared on Wednesday.
Disposing of a petition and an appeal against a single judge’s order of July 2004, a division bench upheld the impugned order insofar as it related to hoardings put up on pavements. Such boards could neither be licensed, nor any fee recovered for them.
Besides the city district government, the single judge’s order was also questioned by an outdoor advertiser, Vision Publicity, who said they were duly licensed by the CDGK on payment of the requisite fee, but their boards were also being removed.
The appellate bench, which consisted of Justices Saiyed Zawwar Huissain Jaffery and Maqbool Baqar, observed that the CDGK was also empowered to auction publicity sites.
PLEA DECLINED: The Sindh High Court declined on Wednesday withdrawal of a petition found to have been moved by four deceased people and summoned a co-petitioner on March 7 to explain the position.
Seven people moved a petition challenging a provincial revenue board order to the executive district officer concerned of the city district government to hold an inquiry into a land dispute. The court asked the EDO to proceed with the impugned inquiry and submit a report to it.
The EDO submitted in his report that four of the petitioners died 10 years ago while the petition that bore their signatures was filed in 2005. One of the living petitioners also disowned the petition, saying he had nothing to do with the disputed land.
A bench, comprising Justices Saiyed Zawwar Hussain Jaffery and Maqbool Baqar, asked the petitioners’ counsel how a petition could be signed by deceased people.
