KARACHI, Oct 2: The Sindh High Court has directed its official assignee on Thursday to attach an unlawfully-constructed structure in Maqboolabad, Karachi Cooperative Housing Societies Union, and summoned the builders and the Karachi Building Control Authority officials concerned to explain why it was not demolished in compliance with a court order.
The action was taken on a contempt petition moved by Maqbool Cooperative Housing Society (Maqboolabad), Block 3, KCHSU.
The society submitted that it had questioned the construction of the building on its plot number 43/3, measuring 1016 square yards, by a writ petition in 1998. Instead of the permissible ground-plus-one floor residential accommodation, the structure was multi-storeyed and consisted of flats, showrooms, shops and town houses.
It was a commercial building raised unlawfully in an exclusively residential area.
The mandatory open space was also included in the covered area, but the KBCA remained silent. Besides violating the KBCA rules and regulations, the under-construction building infringed the bona fide residents’ right to privacy in the locality.
The petitioner society alleged that the flats and shops were being sold without advertising it to escape notice.
The petitioner submitted that the KBCA was approached to regularize the violations on nominal payments. Little could be done by the KBCA or the court of law to undo the wrong in view of the interests of purchasers.
Allowing the petition, a division bench of the high court ordered the KBCA in April 2001, that the impugned structure be demolished.
The authority also reported compliance but left the original structure on the ground floor intact. The builder allegedly resumed construction recently and the petitioner society moved a contempt petition.
A division bench comprising Justices S. Ahmed Sarwana and M. Mujibullah Siddiqui asked the KBCA counsel why the original structure had also not been demolition after the court’s order.
The authority’s counsel submitted that there was nothing on the record and only the officials concerned could explain the position.
The bench summoned the respondents on Nov 5 and asked the official assignee to attach the building in the meanwhile, with police help, if necessary.
The society was allowed to post two guards on the premises at its own expense to prevent further construction.
APPEAL DISMISSED: A division bench of the Sindh High Court dismissed on Thursday appeals of three men in a murder case and upheld the punishment awarded to them by a trial court, adds PPI.
Appellants Sattar alias Satti, Bhooral and Amanullah were sentenced to life imprisonment with fine of Rs50,000 each as compensation by an additional district and sessions judge, Kandhkot, on Jan 23, 1996.
Complainant Ali Nawaz had lodged a report with Kashmore police station on Feb 7, 1990, that appellants had attacked him and his friend, Shah Murad. He had claimed that Shah Murad died in the attack.