KARACHI, May 13: The Sindh High Court issued show-cause notices to the city nazim and two city district government officials for raising a boundary wall around a disputed five-acre plot for expansion of the inter-city bus terminal on Hub River Road.
Two petitioners submitted through Advocate Abdul Waheed Kanju that the CDGK was bent upon acquiring the plot, though it was part of a katchi abadi. While their petition was still pending, the CDGK raised a boundary wall and included the disputed plot in the bus terminal premises. The city nazim and the CDGK officials concerned should be charged with contempt of court.
CDGK counsel Manzoor Ahmed argued that the plot was already a part of the terminal project and it had never been declared part of a katchi abadi under the law. The terminal at Yousuf Goth needed rapid expansion to cope with the rising number of vehicles using the terminal. Buses rating on the Coastal Highway-Khuzdar-Quetta route and their passengers required more facilities at the terminal.
The number of buses had gone up from 50 to 250 within a year and a half. The plot was duly acquired for a public purpose and was not a disputed property. Constructions had already been made on the site and the boundary wall had been erected for public safety convenience, he said.
A division bench comprising Justices Azizullah M. Memon and Arshad Noor Khan issued show-cause notices to the respondents to enable them to clarify their position.
SBC demand
The Sindh Bar Council demanded on Tuesday that the provincial government should allocate it grant under budgetary provisions so that it did not have to depend on ‘doles’ extended to it from time to time to carry out its statutory functions.
Thanking Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah for donating a grant of Rs1 million to the council during a meeting with a SBC deputation recently, Advocate A. Haleem Siddiqui, SBC executive committee chairman, told a news conference at his office on Tuesday afternoon that the council needed a budgetary annual grant as a matter of right to meet its expenses.
Advocate Haneef Ahmed Bhatti, chairman of the SBC benevolent fund committee, told the reporters that such a grant was necessary to enable the council to continue to work for the welfare of lawyers and their dependants. Both pointed out that a grant of Rs5 million was provided for the Punjab Bar Council in the province’s annual budget for 2007-2008 and the Sindh government should follow suit.
They said the SBC deputation told the CM that the lawyers would continue their struggle till the achievement of their objective, that is, restoration of the pre-November 3, 2007, judiciary, the rule of law and supremacy of the Constitution. They regretted that the new government cordoned off the Karachi and Malir bar associations like its predecessor on May 12. They said the lawyers only wanted to pay homage to the martyrs of May 12, 2007. They called for a probe into the carnage and punishment of its perpetrators.
The SBC, they said, fully supported the Sindh High Court Bar Association managing committee’s unanimous resolution adopted earlier on Tuesday to request the Sindh High Court chief justice to refrain from conducting judicial work. They said the recent occurrences in the SHC were a consequence of the mass removal of senior judges.
Advocates Siddiqui and Bhatti said an SBC delegation would attend the country-wide convention of lawyers’ representatives scheduled to be held in Lahore on May 17. Whatever decisions are taken by the convention under the guidance of the Pakistan Bar Council would be duly implemented by the SBC, they added.
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.