SHC stays handover of Aisha Bawany College to trustee till September 23

Relieved students returned to their classrooms at the Aisha Bawany College on Saturday after the Sindh High Court restrained a civil execution court from conducting further proceedings till September 23 in a case pertaining to the award of possession of the college to its trustee. 

The interim order came during a hearing of a provincial government plea submitting that it had filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the rent controller’s order to hand over the possession of the college to its trustee over the education department’s failure to pay up the outstanding rent dues.

Assistant Advocate General Ziauddin Junejo and Ale-Maqbool Rizvi said that the matter was fixed before the Supreme Court on September 18, and the execution proceedings of the rent controller’s decree may be stayed. 

They said the future of almost 3,000 students who were enrolled at the Aisha Bawany College was at stake as the trustee wanted to use the trust building for commercial purposes.

A single bench, headed by Justice Fahim Ahmed Siddiqui, after the preliminary hearing of the government’s application, issued notices to the Aisha Bawany Trust and other respondents for September 23, and in the meantime restrained the executing court from conducting any further proceedings with regard to the execution of the rent controller’s decree in favour of the trust till the next hearing.

The rent controller had given a decision in favour of the trustee of the Aisha Bawany College over the non-payment of over 8.4 million dues to the trust on account of the rent.

On September 13 the rent controller had directed handing over the possession of the college building’s boys section and the eastern wing of the ground floor comprising the principal office,  science and computer laboratories and the staffroom to the trustee. According to the decree, the provincial education department had failed to pay up the dues. The bailiff on August 14 had handed over the property to the trustee on the direction of the execution court.