KARACHI, April 22: The Sindh High Court issued notices on Tuesday to the city and provincial governments and the Karachi Building Control Authority on a writ petition challenging commercialization of roads in the city.
The petitioners, Shehri: CBE (Citizens for Better Environment) and six concerned residents of the affected areas, stated that in violation of the law and constitutional provisions and against all norms and principles of urban planning, Karachi’s civic agencies had been resorting to commercialization of residential areas with indecent haste. One illegal method devised by them was declaration of roads as commercial.
In 1999, however, the petitioners recalled, “a sensible governing body of the Karachi Development Authority” halted the process and directed the Master Plan and Environmental Control Department (MPEC), the predecessor of the city government’s Master Plan Office, to study alternative methods of catering to the growing needs of commercialization and other changes in town planning. It was stressed that Karachi needed an “urban renewal plan” rather than commercialization of roads and residential areas. The MPEC conducted survey of a number of residential areas, and according to its reports dealing with PECHS, 80 per cent of the residents strongly opposed commercialization.
Citing press reports, the petitioners said, a new move was afoot to resurrect the commercialization policy. The first phase of the plan envisaged commercialization of 12 roads. The renewed strip/ribbon road commercialization plan, they maintained, was flagrantly violative of the Sindh Town Planning Act of 1915, Karachi Development Authority Order, 1957, Sindh Building Control Ordinance, 1979 and Karachi Building and Town Planning Regulations of 1979 and 2002. It would further increase the pressure on civic amenities and public utilities, including water supply, sewerage, electricity, parking facilities and municipal services. The no-objection certificates issued by various agencies were meaningless inasmuch as they never committed themselves to ensuring the requisite services. They were not in a position to maintain even the existing services, the petitioners emphasized, pointing out the frequent breakdowns.
The plan was also repugnant to the right to life, right to privacy, right to equal protection of law and right to due enjoyment and preservation of property, which were all guaranteed by the Constitution. Relying on Supreme Court judgments of 1994 and 1999, they said the plan violated a whole lot of constitutional provisions, including articles 2-A, 9, 14, 24, 25, 37 and 38 of the Constitution.
They urged the court to declare unlawful the commercialization plan and restrain the respondents from implementing it. They also sought a direction to the respondents to undertake urban renewal programmes to address the needs of Karachi’s burgeoning population, which was projected to increase from 12 million to 20 million by 2020.
An SHC division bench, comprising Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice S. Ali Aslam Jafri, ordered that notices be issued to the city and provincial governments and the KBCA for April 25.