KARACHI: Order on plea by legal heirs reserved: Property case
KARACHI, Oct 30: The Sindh High Court reserved judgement on Thursday on a writ petition moved by the legal heirs of the late Nawab Mahabat Khanji of Junagadh in 1986 for distribution of his property in accordance with the Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1962.
The petitioners, 14 princes and princesses of the defunct state and their legal heirs, cited as respondents Nawab Dilawar Khanji, who succeeded the late ruler, and the provincial and federal governments as respondents. They said Sir Mahabat left behind 17 heirs to share his movable and immovable assets when he died in November 1959. They appended a list of properties along with the shares of the surviving heirs.
On Aug 22, 1961, the petition said, the then president issued the Acceding States Property Order, which declared that any question arising directly or indirectly between “persons claiming to be heirs and successors of the ruler of a state or claiming to succeed to the state concerning devolution or distribution of any property of that state or ruler will be decided by an order of the federal government”.
A notification issued in pursuance of the 1961 order in May 1963 declared the property of the late Nawab to be (Junagadh) state property and vested it the new Nawab of Junagadh. Other heirs were to receive their shares in cash. The petition claimed that the late Nawab’s property should not have been declared state property. It should have been allowed to devolve upon the various heirs in accordance with the Islamic law of inheritance, which has no room for the law of primogeniture in matters of succession.
The new Nawab said in his rejoinder that due shares had been given to all the heirs and nothing was left to distribute. The president’s order of 1961 and the notification of 1963 were in accordance with the instrument of accession signed by Sir Mahabat in 1947 and the personal law had no application in matters of state succession.
A division bench, comprising Chief Justice Saiyed Saeed Ashhad and Justice Ghulam Rabbani, reserved judgment after hearing the counsel for the two parties and the federal and provincial law officers.
KBCA RESTRAINED: The Sindh High Court restrained the Karachi Building Control Authority on Thursday from sealing a college functioning in a residential accommodation and barred the latter from raising any construction or making structural changes till Nov 28 when a petition moved by the college would come up for hearing.
Admitting the petition to regular hearing, a division bench, comprising Justices Sabihuddin Ahmed and Amir Hani Muslim, asked the petitioner to join the city district government as a respondent because use of a plot allotted for residential or other purposes could only be accorded by the CDG in its capacity as the lessor.
The College of Accounting and Management Sciences, which is operating in a residential bungalow in Gulshan-i-Faisal, Bath Island, Clifton, submitted through Advocate Qazi Faez Isa that in response to a KBCA letter of Oct 30, 2002, to seek regularization by Dec 3, 2002, it made an application on Dec 14, 2002. It applied for one-time amnesty under the Sindh Regulation and Control (Use of Plots and Construction of Buildings) Ordinance, 2002, though it was using the rented premises for “educational and not commercial purposes”. The requisite fee was also paid.
The petitioner said nothing was heard from the KBCA until it received notices on Oct 4 and 16 to “stop all commercial activities in residential premises within three days”, failing which the college would be sealed under the Sindh Building Control Ordinance, 1979. It said the KBCA could not act contrary to the provisions of the regularization ordinance and its own offer made under it.
The KBCA stated in its counter-affidavit filed through Advocate Shahid Jamil Khan that the petitioner had illegally converted a residential bungalow into a commercial college without obtaining permission from the master plan and environmental control department of the CDGK.