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KARACHI, Aug 28: The Supreme Court upheld a Sindh High Court judgment declaring that any individual in the know of unlawful acquisition of possession could move a complaint under the Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005.
Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad and Justice Zia Pervez, who constituted the SC bench that heard the case at the court’s registry here, asked the additional district and sessions judge (south) to proceed with the complaint lodged by Sharmila Faruqui, daughter of former Pakistan Steel chairman Usman Faruqui, against Abdul Hafeez, who allegedly illegally occupied her father’s 1000-square-yard plot at D-12, Block 2, Clifton, by forging bogus documents.
The ADJ had earlier dismissed the complaint holding that the owner of the plot, the aggrieved party, alone could file a complaint under the Illegal Dispossession Act. Unless the owner himself came forward to lodge a complaint, the court could not take cognizance of the offence, the ADJ held.
Complainant Sharmila Faruqui challenged the ADJ’s ruling in the Sindh High Court in revision. The high court set aside the impugned order and declared that any person who had the knowledge of illegal dispossession, and not necessarily the owner of the subject property or the aggrieved individual, could move a complaint.
Abdul Hafeez preferred a petition for leave to appeal against the SHC ruling. Upholding the ruling, the Supreme Court observed that the owner (Mr Faruqui) was in jail when his property was allegedly occupied by forgery. The complainant was his daughter and duly conversant with the facts of the case.
It directed the ADJ to proceed with the complaint.
Order reserved
A Sindh High Court division bench comprising Justices Munib Ahmed Khan and Syed Pir Ali Shah reserved its order on a petition moved by Shehri-Citizens for Better Environment against the 11-storeyed Green Belt Residency, China Town, Clifton.
Shehri counsel Abdul Rehman sought the demolition of the unauthorised structure as there was no law in the field to regularise the violations even on payment of extra charges. He said the regularisation ordinance and another subsequent scheme for one-time regularisation had expired.
Advocate Khalid Jawed Khan said the builder and developer had submitted a regularisation application to the Karachi Building Control Authority and the matter should be left to its decision.
The petitioner organisation said the offending structure violated not only the building regulations but also the environmental law. The city would suffer irreversible environmental degradation if such buildings were allowed to be constructed or regularised. The KBCA was bound to demolish it under its own rules and the sanctioned plan because no regularisation provision was available now.
Karsaz blasts FIR
The state withdrew on Thursday its appeal against a district and sessions judge’s order for registration of a second FIR in the Karsaz bomb blasts case of Oct 18, 2007.
The explosions occurred at PPP leader Benazir Bhutto’s welcome rally and she wanted her complaint registered as the FIR by the Bahadarabad police station, which had already registered a case on the complaint of its staff.
Ms Bhutto had moved district and sessions judge Agha Rafiq Ahmed Khan (since elevated to the high court and appointed federal law secretary), who directed the police to register a second FIR on Ms Bhutto’s complaint.
The provincial government instituted an inquiry into the incident and preferred a revision petition in the high court against the sessions judge’s order. The operation of the impugned order was stayed by the then chief justice, who heard the provincial government plea.
The case came up before Justice Syed Mahmood Alam Rizvi on Thursday and assistant advocate-general Nafees Ahmed Usmani requested the court to allow the state to withdraw its revision plea.
Appearing for the late PPP leader, Advocate Haider Ali Sundarani said the withdrawal of the state plea would revive the impugned order and the version of Ms Bhutto and Syed Qaim Ali Shah would be incorporated into the FIR by operation of law.
The petition was disposed of as withdrawn.
Infrastructure cess
A division bench consisting of Justices Qaiser Iqbal and Khalid Ali Z. Qazi reserved its judgment on several intra-court appeals moved by importers and exporters against the imposition of 0.5 per cent ‘infrastructure cess’ to bear the heavy burden on the province’s road and communication network by the movement of import and export consignments. A single judge upheld the cess as a tax on carriage of goods by road, which was recoverable by the provincial government. Appearing for the appellants, Advocates Munib Akhtar and Dr Mohammad Farogh Nasim assailed the levy as a tax on import and export, which fell with the exclusive domain of the federal government.
Advocate Rasheed A. Akhund, special counsel for the provincial government, and Additional Advocate-General Abdul Fatah Malik defended the impugned judgment.
Bail granted
Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali granted interim bail before arrest to Beena Hasan in the sum of Rs100,000 and issued a notice to the prosecution for Sept 3.
The applicant is a co-accused in a multi-million-rupee bank fraud case. Her counsel, however, said she was not initially named in the first information report and that there was no evidence against her. She had two small children to look after and would not abscond if granted bail.
