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October 11, 2008	Saturday	Shawwal 11, 1429

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KARACHI, Oct 10: The Sindh High Court directed the provincial home department and the inspector-general of police to empower the city district government police station, which also has the Karachi Building Control Authority and the Karachi Development Authority wing of the CDGK within its purview, to register first information reports.

The police station was set up vide an official notification in November 2007 but had remained dormant because of inability to register criminal cases against offenders and paucity of staff, equipment and other facilities.

The KBCA, which was particularly keen on a functional CDGK police station after failing to have one of its own along with a special magistrate to curb violation of building laws, was asked to co-ordinate with the home and police departments to upgrade the police station. Punitive measures are contemplated by Section 19 of the Sindh Building Control Ordinance, 1979, but the KBCA can do nothing to enforce the law.

The police station has strength of 35 constables, four of whom are handicapped and not more than 15 of whom are available at any given moment because of leave of absence or deputation. There is no lock-up attached to the police station and arms and ammunition is supplied to its staff on a daily basis because there is no ‘malkhana’ either. No mobile vans are available to its staff.

A division bench comprising Justices Munib Ahmed Khan and Khwaja Naveed Ahmed ordered that the CDGK and the KBCA would be responsible for meeting the space and other requirements of the police station, which would remain under the control of the city nazim and the district co-ordination officer as stated by the notification creating it. The investigation of cases would be carried out under the supervision and direction of the Sindh Police deputy inspector-general for investigations.

The public utilities, including water, electricity and gas companies, would not sanction their connections without verifying approval plans by the regulatory authority. If any connection has been given to an unauthorized building, it would immediately be snapped at the KBCA’s request.

Sub-leases would be registered only if the building concerned had been constructed in accordance with the sanctioned plan. The registrar and sub-registrar would refer all doubtful cases to the KBCA, which would complete the verification within seven days. The KBCA was warned against frequent transfers of its deputy controllers and other field staff as it facilitated evasion of responsibility for building violations.

Advocate-General Mohammad Yusuf Leghari, KBCA counsel Shahid Jamil Khan, CDGK counsel Manzoor Ahmed, KESC counsel Mohammad Ali Mazhar, Sui Souhtern Gas counsel Aasim Iqbal and board of revenue counsel M. Ahmed Pirzada were heard by the bench before passing the order.

Land case remanded

The bench, meanwhile, partially accepted an appeal moved by the Sindh government against a single judge’s order in favour of allotment of 21 acres of land behind the Quaid-i-Azam International Airport at Deh Gujro, Tapo Songal. The single judge had decreed as prayed a suit instituted by Mst Khurshid Begum and Mohammad Arif as allottees of the prime land.

Assistant Advocate-General Adnan Karim Memon argued that the impugned judgment and decree were obtained by the plaintiffs by producing documents.

The bench set aside the impugned orders and remanded the suit to a single judge for fresh adjudication. In the meantime, the appellant government was restrained from interfering with the plaintiffs’ possession of the property and barred the plaintiffs from creating third party interest.

Karachi club row

Justice Gulzar Ahmed, meanwhile, settled a dispute between three members of the Karachi Club and its managing committee. The members submitted through Advocate Rafiq Ahmed Kalwar that the club committee had spent a sum of about Rs380 million on construction of an annex without the permission of a special general meeting as required by the rules. The committee, meanwhile, called a meeting belatedly to obtain sanction retrospectively. The plaintiff members challenged the committee’s decision.

The court allowed the meeting but said the retrospective permission would be subject to the inspection and valuation of the new building by Fida Hussain Ebrahim or Ms Yasmeen Lari, both renowned architects. The plaintiffs and the defendants would equally share the architect’s fee and a report would be submitted within a month.