KARACHI, Feb 6: A division bench of the Sindh High Court allowed the city district government to proceed against the milk sellers for overcharging.
The milk-sellers association had moved a contempt application against the city district government for booking their members despite a restraint order by the court.
Appearing for the CDGK, Advocate Manzoor Ahmed submitted that the order was passed when the price was disputed by the petitioners. Now that the court has fixed an interim price (Rs32 a litre in retail) at their own request, they were bound to sell milk at the court-fixed price. The city district government was overseeing the milk trade in the public interest to ensure that the court-fixed price prevailed. Any retailer charging over and above the court-fixed price was liable to prosecution as the consumer could not be left at the mercy of profiteers.
Dismissing the contempt plea, the division bench, which consisted of Justices Munib Ahmed Khan and Syed Pir Ali Shah, allowed the city district government to enforce the court-fixed price in accordance with the law.
Kidney Hill
The bench heard arguments of Shehri counsel Rizwana Ismail at length in the Kidney Hill park case.
The lawyer said the disputed land was allocated to park by a martial law order as far back as 1983. The character of the amenity park could now be changed under the law and the consistent rulings of the superior courts. Further hearing was adjourned to Friday.
The Sindh High Court, meanwhile, declared commercial use of a ground floor apartment in a residential block in Clifton illegal on Wednesday.
Any approval given by the city district government for commercialization of the apartment was not in consonance with the law, a division bench comprising Justices Munib Ahmed Khan and Syed Pir Ali Shah observed while allowing a petition by Advocate Mahfoozyar Khan, who had filed the petition as president of the residential complex’s residents association. He complained that a resident was running an estate agency on his ground-floor apartment by breaching the boundary wall. The lawyer said one flat in a residential complex could not be commercialized.
The respondent resident in his rejoinder alleged a number of irregularities and violations in the complex by moving a separate petition. He said nobody was bothered about them while he had been singled out for legal action. The court asked the nazir to carry out an inspection of the building and he confirmed a number of violations. Allowing the counter-petition also, the bench gave the Karachi Building Control Authority five days to chop off the offending structures.
Justice Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui, meanwhile, barred further construction on the disputed site of a mosque in Phase V. The plaintiff said a plot on Khayaban-i-Mujahid was purchased by a former deputy military attaché of the Saudi Embassy and converted into a mosque in 1983. A person claiming to be the attorney of the purchaser recently sought to raise commercial construction on the plot.
Issuing notices to the defendants, the judge fixed Feb 20 as the next date for hearing for detailed arguments.
DIG’s promotion
A division bench consisting of Justices Azizullah M. Memon and Arshad Noor Khan directed the establishment division and the central selection board to keep a grade 20 post vacant at the CSB’s meeting due on Feb 11. The interim order was passed on a petition moved by Mirpurkhas deputy inspector-general Mazhar Ali Shaikh against his supersession since 2001.
The petitioner submitted through Advocate Mansoorul Haq Solangi that he joined the police service in 1977, was promoted to grade 18 in 1985 and to grade 19 in 1995. He was moved over to grade 20 in 1996 but is yet to be formally promoted to grade 20. He said a number of his junior officers had superseded him since 2001 and the CSB be asked to consider his case at its Feb 11 meeting. The bench ordered that one vacancy should be maintained in grade 20 for the petitioner should he succeed in his claim.
The Sindh Service Tribunal, meanwhile, set aside the reversion orders of provincial information department translators Salim Jatoi and Rafiq Solangi.
They said they were recruited in grade 5 in 1993 and were promoted to grade 11 in 1996. In 2006, however, the department reverted them to their initial grade saying that their appointment was unlawful and their promotion in 1996 was also in violation of the law. They approached the service tribunal and a bench comprising former justice Ghulam Nabi Soomro (chairman) and member Ashfaq Ali Memon and Nazar Mohammad Lefhari nullified the reversion order with retrospective effect with all consequential benefits.