HYDERABAD, Nov 28: While describing the conduct of government officials unsatisfactory, the Sindh High Court Hyderabad circuit bench here on Wednesday issued bailable warrants, for the arrest of the then Land Acquisition Officer/Mukhtiarkar of Mirpurkhas, Farooq Leghari, in one of the land acquisition matter.

In an another similar matter, the division bench, comprising Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Sarmad Jalal Osmany, has directed the Superintendent Engineering of LBOD, Wapda, Sanghar, in presence of Wapda’s counsel, Idrees Naqshbandi, to deposit an amount of Rs10 million with the additional registrar of this court within two weeks.

The court also expressed its displeasure over the way the officials of either the Sindh Irrigation Department or the Finance Department had handled the matters of land acquisition in which possession of property had been obtained by the government but Khatedars or land owners were still shunting in the courts to get the payment of their compensation, passed under an award of the Land Acquisition Act.

Such payments are to be made to the petitioners as their lands were utilised for different projects such as the Left Bank Outfall Drainage project, Hyderabad by-pass.

The court noted with grave concern that millions of rupees were involved in the matters but no responsible officer was available to assist the court. “One has gone on Umra the others are busy in meeting and told the Sindh AAG that they have no time to attend the court,” Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed maintained.

The court first took-up seven identical and fresh petitions, filed by different Khatedars through Ghulam Rasool Qureshi, advocate, in which the matter pertained to Wapda for its LBOD project in Sanghar district.

The land had been acquired but no award was passed as yet with the result that the land owners had to move the SHC for getting the amount of compensation coupled with all due benefits in terms of interest.

One petitioner, Ayub Brohi, and two other co-petitioners stated in the petition that the respondents — Land Acquisition Officer (LAO) of LBOD Wapda and the LBOD superintendent engineer, Sanghar, — obtained the possession of the land with issuance of notification and completed the project in 1996 without completing land acquisition proceedings though it was mandatory upon LAO.

They claimed that the LAO did not proceed further, did not issue notice under section 9 of the LA Act 1894 nor has passed the award under section 11 of the LA Act although they added that they had been deprived of their lands since 1996.

They said that they had approached the LAO for passing of the award but he always told them that the money was not available as he was delaying the passage of the award.

They prayed the court to direct the respondents to perform their duties and complete the land acquisition proceedings.