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THE chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Chaudhry, his brothers Justices Jawad Khwaja and Ghulam Rabbani, have delivered yet again. A large playfield in the low-income Lines Area of Karachi has been saved for the benefit of thousands of residents.

My Feb 18, 2007 column recorded “There are few open spaces which remain in this polluted sewerage and garbage-strewn city of Karachi. Parks, playgrounds, roads, graveyards, railway yards, sewage-treatment plants, beaches and other amenity areas are being swiftly and deliberately encroached upon, increasingly becoming easy prey for greedy, ignorant, couldn't-care-less, well-connected land-grabbers.

“One current example is Webb Ground, a five-acre playing field in Tunisia Lines, opposite the Christian cemetery. Long used as an institutional sports field by Karachi Grammar School, it was integrated into the Lines Area Redevelopment Project (LARP) in the early 1980s and continued to be used as a playground for the neighbourhood. In disregard of all that is proper, this amenity plot has now been leased to the Army Welfare Trust (AWT) which in further disregard of what is correct and lawful has sub-leased it to a concern known as Makro-Habib (M-H) which will build upon it a 'Cash & Carry Store.'”

In August 2007, area resident Mehfooz-un-Nabi Khan filed a constitutional petition in the Sindh High Court. At the first hearing Shehri was called in by the concerned judges, Justices Sarmad Jalal Usmany and Ali Sain Dino Metlo, to assist the court and appear as a co-petitioner. The case was later dismissed by certain PCO judges.

Shehri this year appealed to CJP Chaudhry against the arbitrary dismissal. The facts were narrated in my column of June 14, 2009. Taking suo motu notice of the matter, the Supreme Court summoned to Islamabad Mehfooz-ul Nabi (represented by that excellent environmental lawyer Mansoor Ali Shah — now elevated to the Lahore High Court bench — and his able assistant, Saima Khwaja), the federal government, the AWT, M-H, and Shehri (diligently represented by Chairperson Dr Raza Gardezi). The matter was heard over a period of three months.

In a meticulous skilfully crafted judgment authored by Justice Khwaja the learned judges established, with the help of two maps, that in 1982 Plot 148/1 Tunisia Lines, as part of a package of some 200 acres, had been transferred by the federal government to the KDA/Sindh government for the LARP, where it was confirmed in the master plan as a playground. Consequently, the 2002 lease to AWT and 2006 sub-lease to M-H were declared null and void ab initio.Both parties were fully aware, based on numerous representations made by the city nazim and letters/articles written by Shehri and other concerned citizens, of the claim of the CDGK over the amenity plot.

The judgment holds that “The obligation of state functionaries is to ensure that the financial interests of the government are adequately taken care of. It has been reiterated in Rule 22 that the 'Military Estates Officer shall proceed to sell the lease by auction to the person who agrees to pay the highest amount as premium.' Lease premiums and rentals are required to be benchmarked against market value to ensure that no loss is caused to the state exchequer. While estimating the market value 'actual sales of unoccupied land for building purposes in the locality' wherever possible, are required to be used....

“Rule 26 provides that 'in exceptional cases for exceptional reasons to be recorded in writing, and subject to the approval of the central government or such other authority as the central government may appoint for this purpose,' dispensation from the auction prescription may be had but 'the concurrence of the collector and the approval by the officer commanding the station shall be obtained...' The record does not show that Rule 26 has been complied with.”

It was thus inconceivable that the federal government, after inexplicably reclassifying the plot as commercial, leased 24,997 square yards in central Karachi to AWT for only Rs200,640 (i.e. Rs8.36/square yard) with an annual rent of only Rs6,020 (i.e. Rs0.25/square yard). AWT, in turn sub-leased it to M-H for an annual rent far in excess of Rs17.5m.

The judges were appalled that in addition to Webb Ground, the federal government had leased in 2002 three other prime spaces alongside Sharea Faisal to AWT at the same throwaway premiums and annual rents Survey No.195 (9.304 acres) adjacent to Regent Plaza Hotel, Survey No.183/1 (8.48 acres) adjacent to FTC, Survey No.197/16 (1.319 acres) near the JPMC.

The bench found the decisions to reclassify these plots as commercial “wholly arbitrary and lacking in transparency” and “violative of the Acquisition, Custody and Relinquishment Rules 1944”.

Comment was made on the status of AWT (a non-governmental organisation, a private society) and the privilege it was given “It was granted government land in a wholly opaque and non-transparent manner without any regard to the financial interests of the central government and without an open invitation to interested bidders. The grant of leasehold rights to an NGO in this manner obviously cannot be treated as a legitimate and permissible exercise of executive powers.” Recorded also in the judgment “Makro-Habib is the author of its own woes.”

Many functionaries of public bodies have violated their fiduciary responsibilities while dealing with the allotment of public assets to private NGOs (e.g. the KPT granting 130 acres to its officers' society NGO at Mai Kolachi and 250 acres to its workers' society NGO at Hawkesbay and KMC/CDGK granting 200 acres to its officers' society NGO at Gutter Baghicha). In the latter case, the then chief secretary Javed Ashraf Hussain's Anti-Corruption Committee-1 cancelled the officers' society allotment, and criminally prosecuted the involved KMC/CDGK officials.

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