KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Tuesday issued notices to the mayor, Karachi Metropoli­tan Corporation (KMC), local government secretary, the director general of parks and others on a petition filed against the handing over of Beach View Park to a private entity for the construction of a museum.

A two-judge constitutional bench of the SHC headed by Justice Muhammad Saleem Jessar also put the Sindh advocate general on notice for June 30.

Citing the secretary local government, KMC, Karachi mayor and DG parks & horticulture KMC as respondents, Opposition Leader in the City Council Advocate Saifuddin along with a council member of Jamaat-i-Islami petitioned the SHC and submitted that the council had passed a procedurally and substantively defective resolution in March to award the contract of the subject park to a private organisation.

Counsel for petitioners Usman Farooq argued that the impugned resolution was directly concerned with unlawful commercialisation of the park, a public open space in Clifton under KMC’s custodianship, and illegal award of three acres of land to a private organisation.

JI moves SHC against KMC resolution allocating land of Clifton park for establishing museum

He also contended that petitioners had raised objections to the impugned resolution from the floor of the City Council itself and had been directly and adversely affected by passing such resolution, which was enacted in violation of the procedural requirements of the Sindh Local Government Act, 2013 and suppressing the rights of petitioners and other elected members to deliberate upon the matter.

He maintained that the resolution was introduced and passed in a manifestly illegal and dubious manner as the agenda pertaining specifically to the Beach View Park resolution was deliberately not issued or circulated to the members of the City Council prior to the meeting held on March 12.

He maintained that the council had passed a procedurally and substantively defective resolution on March 12 to award the Beach View Park land to the Citizens Archive of Pakistan for construction of a museum, and that such an act was without legal authority and in direct violation of binding judicial pronouncements of the superior courts.

He also argued that the park had served for decades and was designated as a public open space under the master plan and applicable statutory frameworks and was also subject to the protection of several binding judgments of the Supreme Court as well as the SHC.

The petitioners asked the SHC to declare the impugned resolution illegal, ultra vires and void ab initio, and to issue a restraining order preventing the respondents from awarding, leasing or transferring any portion of the park to any private entity.

After a preliminary hearing, the bench issued notices to the respondents as well as Sindh AG for June 30 with direction to file comments till the next hearing.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2026