SHC restrains SBCA from stopping fashion designer to use shop at heritage building

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has restrained the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) from interfering with a fashion designer or the use of a shop situated at a heritage building, Krishna Mansion, in Saddar unless the SBCA deems that the building poses an immediate threat to public safety.

The direction came on an application filed by Tanveer Jamshed against an SBCA notice with regard to the declaration of the mansion as dangerous for habitation, seeking temporary injunction against his dispossession from the shop.

A counsel for the plaintiff submitted that he was a well-known fashion designer who was doing business in the name of Tee Jays in a tenement situated at the centuries-old building in Saddar. He submitted that the property in question had been declared as a heritage site by an architect in its report filed before the SHC in a matter related to declaration and protection of heritage sites in the city. He submitted that the plaintiff had also challenged the ejectment order of rent controller before the high court.

The counsel submitted that the SBCA had pasted a notice on the building declaring the building as dangerous and not fit for habitation, thereby prohibiting the use of the shop of the plaintiff in collusion with private owners of the building.

He submitted that the defendants wanted to demolish the building so as to escape the Heritage Act which restricted the demolition of a protected heritage except with the sanction of the advisory committee. He submitted that the procedure for declaring the building as dangerous and constitution of a technical committee for such determination as mentioned in the Karachi Building and Town Planning Regulations was not made out besides the SBCA did not give the plaintiff a prior notice under the regulations before prohibiting use of the building.

A counsel for the building owners submitted that the building had been determined as dangerous by the SBCA long ago and that fact was known to the plaintiff as evident from the ejectment order passed by the rent controller but the plaintiff had never taken issue to that determination.

He said the plaintiff’s allegation that the owners intended to demolish the building in violation of the Heritage Act and Rules had no basis and the suit was clearly mala fide and brought to frustrate the ejectment order. He submitted that the defendants had no objection if the SBCA provided a hearing to the plaintiff before prohibiting the use of the suit shop.

A single bench of the SHC headed by Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry observed that the Sindh government made the Sindh Cultural Heritage Property (Identification, Enlistment and Protection) Rules, 2017 and then re-notified the Krishna Mansion as protected heritage along with a number of other buildings.

The high court observed that though the Rule 8 of the Heritage Rules envisaged prior approval of the advisory committee before altering a protected heritage but at present there was nothing to show that the SBCA had determined, ordered or permitted the demolition of the Krishna Mansion. The high court observed that the impugned notice did not state that the building had been marked for demolition therefore the allegation that the impugned notice had been engineered only to demolish the said building was not only unsubstantiated but also premature at this stage.

Disposing of the application, the bench directed the SBCA to call the plaintiff and private owners for a hearing under the rules before determining the action required to be taken under the law in respect of the suit shop keeping in view the role of the advisory committee under the rules. In the meantime, the SHC restrained the SBCA from interfering or stopping the plaintiff from using the shop unless it deemed that the building posed an immediate threat to public safety.