KARACHI, Aug 8: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday directed the provincial government to make the payment of compensation to the affected people of the Lyari Expressway project within three months.

While disposing of over a dozen identical petitions for compensation, a division bench headed by Justice Maqbool Baqar also warned the Sindh government and its functionaries that they would have to face the consequences if they failed to comply with the court’s order.

The petitioners, represented by among others Advocates Fasih uz Zaman and Shaukat Ali Sheikh, submitted in their petitions that their residential and commercial properties had been acquired by the authorities for the Lyari Expressway project, but they had not yet been given compensation.

They impleaded the federal finance secretary, the Sindh chief secretary, the project director of Lyari Expressway, the Revenue EDO, the deputy attorney general, the Sindh advocate general and the city government as respondents.

On Wednesday, Additional Advocate General Shafi Muhammed Memon placed on record a photocopy of the July 12 letter of the finance division regarding the sanction of Rs445 million for the Lyari Expressway Resettlement Project (LERP).

The provincial government law officer stated that funds had been issued by the government and there was no more handicap in making payments to the people displaced due to the project.

The bench observed that the petitioners were not paid compensation probably because the federal government did not allocate funds for the resettlement project.

The court disposed of the petitions along with all pending applications with a direction to the Sindh government to ensure that payments in lieu of land acquired for the Lyari Expressway project may be made to the petitioners within three weeks from Wednesday, without fail, or else all officers concerned who were responsible for execution and implementation of the LERP would face the consequences for non-compliance of the court order.

Earlier, a federal law officer filed comments on behalf of the federal finance secretary stating that the cost of total project was to be borne out by the federal and provincial governments with the ratio of 63 per cent and 36 per cent, respectively.

However, two per cent was released by the federal government to the provincial government up to Dec 2009 and the remaining funds were not being issued as per required schedule on account of a financial crunch.

Progress report of JITs sought

A division bench headed by Chief Justice Mushir Alam directed the chief provincial law officer and federal law officer to submit performance report of joint investigation teams, constituted for investigation and recovery of missing persons in the last one year.

The bench gave this direction while hearing a petition filed by Nusrat Dildar against the disappearance of her brother.

According to her, the victim, Mumtaz Dildar, went to a nearby mosque to offer prayers on April 22, 2011 but did not return.

The petitioner stated that she later learnt that her brother was taken into custody by the CID for interrogation. However, later she came to know that the detainee was given in custody of the Intelligence Bureau.

Apprehending that her brother might be killed in detention, she stated that the detainee was not involved in any sectarian or political activities, nor was he linked with any outfit.

She prayed to the court to order the respondents to produce the detainee in court and order his release if he was not wanted in any criminal case or cases.

The respondent CID denied to having arrested or detained the missing man.

The counsel for the petitioner submitted that the home department constituted a joint investigation team for recovery of the detainee, but the JIT members were harassing the petitioner and her family instead of recovering the detainee.

He said that attempts were being made to scare the petitioner and his family away.

The counsel submitted that the detainee was taken into custody along with other persons and one of the detainees, who was released recently, was given threats on phone by the JIT when he expressed his willingness to give a statement on oath.

The provincial law officer denied allegations of the petitioner’s counsel and said that many missing persons were tracked down through JITs.

The bench, in order to examine the working of JITs, directed the Advocate General, Sindh, and deputy attorney general to file a progress report with regard to recoveries through JITs within two weeks.

The bench put off the hearing to a date to be later announced by court’s office.