KARACHI, Sept 1: A Sindh High Court division bench dismissed on Friday a Nestle appeal against a single judge’s order restraining it from initiating any commercial or industrial activity, including setting up a bottling plant, in an area earmarked for an ‘education city’ in Karachi.

The impugned order was passed by Justice S. Ali Aslam Jafri (since retired) on a suit instituted by the Pakistan Institute of Urology and Transplantation, the Aga Khan University and the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology through Advocate Qazi Faez Isa.

The plaintiffs submitted on their behalf and on behalf of other institutions allotted plots in the proposed education city at Deh Chuhar, Malir, that if the multinational was allowed to set up a water bottling plant, it would not be in consonance with the use of land meant for educational and healthcare institutions. Besides, by extracting water, Nestle would dry out the common sub-soil aquifer.

Dismissing the appeal by a 24-page judgment, the bench, comprising Justices Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Syed Zawwar Hussain Jaffery, pointed out that extraction of huge quantities of water from the aquifer at the rate of 306 million liters per year would disturb the environment of the area.

“Controversies raised through this litigation are also in the nature of public interest litigation. We find no legal infirmity in the impugned order and the appeal is accordingly dismissed”, the appellate bench said.

Advocate Khalid Anwer appeared for the appellant company and Advocate Qazi Faez Isa for the respondents The advocate-general supported the impugned order on behalf of the provincial government.