Clear state land in Surjani Town of encroachments, SHC tells DC

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Tuesday directed the District West deputy commissioner and the Anti-Encroachment Cell director to remove encroachments in the form of fake and fictitious villages on state land in Surjani Town.

Hearing a petition against encroachments in the name of fake goths on state land in Surjani Town, an SHC division bench headed by Justice Nadeem Akhtar asked the Karachi Development Authority why the encroachments have not been removed despite court orders.

The bench said government officials were directed to ensure that encroachments in the form of fake and fictitious goths are not established on state land and the area is retrieved from land grabbers.

The court said that the West Zone SSP had filed a report saying that only correspondence was exchanged by the official respondents for the compliance of court directives. Rejecting the police reports, the bench said that it is clear from the SSP’s report that the exchange of correspondence is merely an eyewash, while actual compliance has not been attempted by them.

The court directed the West DC, the West SSP and the anti-encroachment department to take appropriate action in accordance with the law under their personal supervision for the removal of encroachments from the state land and for its retrieval. The bench directed the respondents to submit a compliance report on December 21.

The petitioners had said that illegal encroachments had been made on the state land in Surjani Town by establishing goths, including the Mohammad Hasan Brohi, Meer Khan, Kaaj Brohi, Arzi Brohi, Gulshan-e-Surjani, Abbasi and other villages. They said that the official respondents in collusion with private persons were involved in the encroachment of the state land, while the anti-encroachment department had failed to remove the encroachments and retrieve the state land.

SBCA chief gets notice

The SHC issued a show-cause notice to the director general of the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) for not complying with the court’s directives in an illegal construction case. The court had directed the SBCA to take steps for the demolition of an illegal five-storey building constructed on a 90-square-yard plot in the Liaquatabad neighbourhood.

The court had also directed the SBCA to submit the details of the delinquent officers under whose tenure the illegal construction had been allowed to take disciplinary action against them.

An interim report filed by the SBCA said that the court’s orders could not be complied with because the occupants of the building had refused to vacate the premises, so the SBCA had now approached the relevant deputy commissioner for assistance. The court said that the interim report clearly shows that the court’s orders were not complied with, and issued a show-cause notice to the SBCA DG to explain the non-compliance. The court directed the SBCA chief to submit an explanation along with the compliance report by demolishing the unauthorised construction.