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KARACHI, May 26: Private courier services are free to collect and deliver 'documents and parcels' but not 'letters', a division bench of the Sindh High Court ruled on Wednesday.
The courier services had moved writ petitions through Advocates Kazim Hasan, Qadir Sayeed and other lawyers against the Pakistan Post Office for trying to hamper their working as, according to it, the collection and delivery of mail was its statutory function to the exclusion of any other organization in the public or private sector.
Appearing for the respondent, Advocate Ahmed Raza Kasuri submitted that Section 4 of the Pakistan Post Office Act assigned the function of running the postal services to the post office alone. The courier companies were not permitted by the law to develop a parallel postal system.
Disposing of the petitions, the division bench comprising Justices Sabihuddin Ahmed and Muhammad Afzal Soomro observed in a short order that the courier companies could dispatch documents and parcels but not letters from one place to another.
As for the definition of the word 'letter' as occurring in Section 4 of the Post Office Act, it would be spelled out in appropriate proceedings.
PLOT CONVERSION: The bench asked the city district government to hand over a challan for conversion of plot 172-M, Tariq Road, PECHS Block 2, to the petitioner-purchaser within two days.
Petitioner Mohammad Irfan informed the bench that the CDGK had not prepared a challan despite a court order. He purchased the 600- square-yard plot for Rs30 million in 1999. Tariq Road had been declared a commercial area all plots around his property had already been allowed to be converted from residential to commercial.
The bench admonished the CDGK counsel, Advocate Manzoor Ahmed, for not complying with the court order and not attending the proceedings with the relevant record.
Executive district officer Syed Zaigham Jaffery of the CDGK's master-plan group of offices undertook to furnish a challan to the petitioner within two days. The bench directed that the petitioner be charged conversion fee at the old rate prevailing when the conversion order was first passed.
SZABIST PLEA: The bench adjourned the hearing of petition moved by the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology against cancellation of a 300-acre plot allotted to it at Malir.
The land was subsequently resumed by the provincial government for having been leased out at a rate much below the market rate. A 20-acre plot had already been carved out of the plot and allotted to Nestle.
A survey report was submitted in the court on Wednesday and advocates Syed Iqbal Haider and Rasheed A. Rizvi sought adjournment on behalf of SZABIST and Nestle, respectively.
ROTI PLANT CASE: Justice Mushir Alam, meanwhile, directed the SHC nazir to inspect the old Roti Plant premises in Block 14 of Gulshan-i-Iqbal and submit a report within two days.
Karachi Building Control Authority counsel Shahid Jamil Khan informed the judge that the nazir was asked on February 27 to inspect the site and furnish a report within two weeks. The order had not been complied with and the KBCA work had been held up.
The authority had demolished an unauthorized marriage hall constructed on the premises but a banquet hall was still functioning there illegally as the alleged owner instituted court proceedings against demolition.
