HYDERABAD, April 19: The Hyderabad circuit bench of the Sindh High Court on Thursday dismissed a constitutional petition filed by the Zeal Pak Cement Factory, which sought the court to declare illegal the allotment of land to two housing societies in the area leased out to the factory for mining limestone.

A division bench comprising Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Faisal Arab passed the order.

The petitioner said that it was granted lease for mining in an area of 1,755 acres in Deh Ganju Takkar of Latifabad taluka, which was initially granted for a period of 25 years commencing from 1962 to 1987 and was renewed for another 30 years from 1987 to 2017 as required under Rule 21 of Mining Lease Act 1960.

The petitioner said that the factory required uninterrupted supply of large quantities of limestone to be able to manufacture various brands of cement, which it was excavating from the leased land full of huge quantities of untapped limestone beneath surface to be excavated.

Of the 1,755 acre leased land the petitioner surrendered 150 acres to the employees cooperative housing society and Board of Revenue (BoR) and 75 acres to Sindh Regimental Centre (SRC), it said.

The petitioner claimed to have learnt that deputy secretary of Sindh Land Utilisation Department had allotted 10 acres to BoR employees society through a letter dated Dec 5, 2003 and 50 acres to divisional employees society and proposed to Sindh government for allotting 20 acres to the Advocate General cooperative housing society. There was a proposal for allotting 75 acres to journalists society and eight acres to Intelligence Bureau society, it said.

The petitioner claimed that since it was lessee over 1,755 acres no portion of the land could be allotted to anyone else without its consent and said that the secretary revenue, BoR, DCO Hyderabad, EDO revenue and mukhtiarkar of Latifabad allotted without its consent land to BoR employees society and divisional employees society thus it was illegal.

The petitioner argued that a residential colony could not be established in a mining area as it would pose dangers to the residents and render mining unsafe for the petitioner, which had no other suitable land within its..

Additional Advocate General Sindh Masood A. Noorani and mukhtiarkar of Latifabad said that 75 acres of land was not granted by the government to SRC as the centre had been allotted 450 acres in 1928 and the piece was not part of land leased to the petitioner.

The court observed that the petitioner had no right as to the allocation of surrendered land to any institute, therefore, no case for interference was made out.

However, the court made it clear before dismissing the petition that the petitioner should not be liable to pay mining lease as far as 152 acres and 75 acres granted to the society were concerned.