KARACHI, Jan 31: The Sindh High Court has directed the city district government and Keamari Town authorities to prevent the chopping down of mangroves in the city’s coastal areas and secure the swampland reclaimed through such cutting.

Two residents of Rahman and Yunusabad goths at Hawkesbay complained that mangroves were being cut down by land-grabbers and the reclaimed area was being sold at a high price. They said this threatened the entire ecological balance, besides irreversibly damaging aquatic life, including fisheries. Lobsters and prawns, which hatch under mangroves, were particularly at risk. In any case, private individuals had no right to reclaim and sell coastal land, which belonged to the state.

Appearing for the petitioners, advocate Gohar Iqbal said that the municipal and revenue authorities, who maintain the land record, should not allow any individual to take possession of any additional land created by the recession of sea-water. All reclaimed land belonged to the government, he submitted.

Representing one of the respondents, advocate Khalid Daudpota asserted that “not a single inch of land” had been artificially reclaimed and sold by his client. He agreed that the reclaimed land was state property. Additional Advocate-General Chaudhry Rafiq Rajvery said the provincial government was entitled to own and possess the reclaimed land and mention it in its revenue record.

Directing the CDGK to protect ecology and the environment, a division bench comprising Justices Munib Ahmed Khan and Pir Syed Ali Shah asked the Keamari Town police officer to inspect the Hawkesbay area and see whether mangroves were being uprooted. He would submit a report to the court within a month.

Builder restrained

The bench, meanwhile, restrained the builder of Al Najibi Plaza on Abdullah Haroon-Garden roads from raising further construction beyond nine floors and from handing over shops, etc. to the purchasers. The order was passed in a petition moved by the owners of an adjacent building who said that the builder had encroached on the entire adjoining open and common space.

The petitioners submitted through advocate Naeemur Rehman that the common space was an amenity plot, which could not be put to commercial use under the Sindh Building Control Ordinance, the Karachi Building and Town Planning Regulations or the Evacuee Property Act. The approval of the construction plan by the Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA) was thus in gross violation of the law.

The plaza had been the subject of a bitter controversy between the builder and civic rights organization Shehri, as it exceeds the limit imposed on the number of floors permissible in the area.

Plot attached

Justice Khwaja Naveed Ahmed, meanwhile, asked the SHC nazir to take possession of a 400-square-yard plot (number B-22) in Rizwan Co-operative Housing Society, Scheme 33, and appoint a watchman to protect it from any trespasser till the disposal of an application moved by its alleged owner.

Mst Zubaida Sultan claimed in a criminal revision application that the plot was her property but had illegally been taken possession of by land-grabbers. She filed an application before a district and sessions court under the Illegal Dispossession Act, 2005, but her case was dismissed by a short order without reasons. She said she had purchased the plot from an allottee, but land-grabbers occupied it and dispossessed her.

The high court had summoned the alleged land-grabber, but the process server said in his report that he was avoiding service and was not available at his address.

Costs imposed

The bench consisting of Justices M.A. Khan and Pir Ali Shah, meanwhile, imposed costs amounting to Rs20,000 on a petitioner for moving the court without ascertaining the facts regarding a 10-storied building known as Billy Views in Garden East. The commercial-cum-residential building is being raised on a 25,713.5-square yard plot (number 77 GRE, Garden East) and consists of seven independent blocks.

The petitioner, Haji Mohammad Ismail, said there was no sanction for the eighth and ninth floors and they were constructed in gross violation of the approved plan and the building rules.

KBCA counsel Shahid Jamil Khan submitted on the basis of record that the complex had been built strictly in accordance with the plan and rules and that there was no violation. The petitioner had not bothered to ascertain the facts before approaching the court. Besides, the structure was raised much earlier and he had moved the court when the finishing touches were being given to it.

Defamation suit

Justice Khalid Ali Z. Qazi, meanwhile, restrained a weekly publication named Yahoo from publishing an allegedly libellous report against corruption in the KBCA. The authority has instituted a suit against the weekly and its publisher for trying to harass the KBCA officials by publishing baseless reports against them and sending them to the high-ups.