HYDERABAD: A division bench of the Sindh High Court, Hyderabad circuit, has directed the chief secretary to hold an inquiry into sanads (property allotment papers) of the Sindh Goth Abad Scheme which, according to revenue authorities, are fake and bogus.
The bench, comprising Justices Nadeem Akhtar and Khadim Hussain M. Shaikh, ordered that the inquiry should be conducted on a top priority basis by an efficient and honest officer. The findings should be submitted with the court’s additional registrar by April 30, said the order.
The bench also directed the Kotri barrage chief engineer to submit with it a report with regard to the action take by the relevant department in pursuance of a notice, issued by the irrigation assistant executive engineer, Kotri barrage Ware sub-division, for the vacation of the subject [Deh Railo] lands and removal of encroachments.
The matter was adjourned till May 3. The court had heard the matter on March 31 but did not dictate its order that day. The order was formally finalised and signed on Wednesday.
The bench was seized with a constitutional petition filed by Asif Ali and 14 other persons who stated in their plea that they were given plots under the Sindh Goth Abad Scheme, 1987 in Deh Railo in the Right Bank Barrage Colony without cost and ownership right. They said that their names were mutated in the deh form-II in 1990-91.
The petitioners stated that the assistant executive engineer and sub-engineer of the Ware sub-division issued notices to them on June 30, 2015 with mala fide intention to deprive them of their plots. The officials alleged that they (petitioners) were in illegal possession of government land and asked them to vacate the plots, they said, and prayed to the court to restrain the respondents from harassing them.The mukhtiarkar of the Sindh Goth Abad Scheme, Jamshoro, assistant executive engineer of the Ware sub-division, and the Kotri mukhtiarkar Asadullah Solangi were present in court. After examining the sanads filed and relied upon by the petitioners, the Kotri mukhtiarkar confirmed on behalf of the Kotri assistant commissioner that the documents were fictitious and bogus.
Assistant Advocate-General Ashfaq Nabi Kazi informed the bench that the Kotri assistant commissioner didn’t file comments as he was not joined in this petition as a respondent and, as such, he was not aware of the fact that the petitioners were in possession of fictitious sanads. He said that relevant authorities and departments came to know about the bogus documents the respondents received the notices relating to the petition.
Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2016