SHC suspends order pertaining to money refund mechanism

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday suspended the SHC single bench order pertaining to refund of the money collected for the Fazaia Housing Scheme’s (FHS), on a high court appeals filed by a private builder and the directorate of estate projects.

The directorate of estate projects and the private builder of the FHS had filed the appeals against the SHC’s single judge order that issued directions to the official assignee of the court for disbursement of the funds to the affected persons of the FHS scam.

The SHC single bench on a lawsuit of the affected persons had directed private banks to transfer all funds to official assignee accounts for further disbursement. The appellants’ counsels submitted that the high court’s single bench order was against the spirit of the division bench of the SHC which granted the appellants to refund all money and liabilities to the allottees of the project within six months. They submitted that the appellants were ready to refund money to the affected persons as per stipulated time and requested the SHC to set aside the impugned SHC’s single bench order.

A division bench of the SHC, headed by Justice Omar Sial, after the preliminary hearing of the appeal issued notices to the affected persons and other defendants for July 22 and in the meantime, suspended the SHC’s single bench order.

It is pertinent to mention here that the SHC had also halted an inquiry with regard to the Fazaia Housing Scheme as the private builder and the directorate of estate projects had agreed to refund all the money and liabilities to the allottees of the project within six months.

The private builder and the directorate of estate projects had filed their affidavits and agreed to refund all the money and other liabilities to the allottees of the project within six months who had paid substantial amounts of money for plots in the project.