KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has ordered the director general of the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) to take disciplinary action against four officials for patronising illegal construction in a Lyari locality.

A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Zafar Ahmed Rajput, also directed the SBCA chief not to assign any field posting to these officials till the conclusion of the proposed proceedings.

The bench was hearing a petition filed in 2022 against the construction of a multi-storey building in Agra Taj Colony without an approved plan and sought directives for demolition of the same.

The bench noted that last year, the DG and SBCA deputy director (demolition) through assistant director (south) Zeeshan Mirza filed different reports which reflected that no approval was granted for such construction and the SBCA had taken the demolition action against the building in question.

However, the petitioner was not convinced with such reports and requested for appointment of a nazir who had inspected the site and submitted that the ground plus-six stories building existed and it was mainly occupied by the families.

The bench said it is evident from the nazir’s report that earlier compliance reports filed by SBCA were false and manipulated, and managed to mislead the court.

The documents submitted by deputy director concerned of SBCA reflected that assistant dire­ctor Niaz Ali Lund, senior building inspector Mohammad Javed and inspector Abdul Rasool were posted at the relevant time when the building in question was raised while assistant director Mirza had filed these reports, it added.

The bench in its order also said, “It further appears that these four officers, in fact, provided an umbrella to the respondents No.14 & 15 [builders/owners], enabling them to carry out illegal and unauthorised construction on the subject plot”.

Besides ordering disciplinary action against these officials, the court also directed the utility service providers to disconnect the power, gas and water supply connections to the subject building.

Moreover, it asked the police to file record about ownership/title documents of the subject plot and get the CNICs of builders blocked and also sought a compliance report from DG SBCA till Dec 6 about demolition of illegal construction in question.

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2024