KARACHI, March 1: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday directed the chief secretary, the secretaries of forest and irrigation departments and other provincial authorities to file their respective replies in a petition against deforestation in the province.

The petition was filed by Rana Faizul Hasan, a civil right campaigner and secretary general of the United Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, who impleaded the chief secretary, the forest department secretary, the chief conservator and the conservators of Thatta, Larkana, Sukkur and Hyderabad, the local government secretary, the senior member of the Board of Revenue, and secretaries of environment, irrigation and finance departments as respondents.

A division bench headed by acting Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar issued notices to the respondents and to the advocate general and put off the hearing to April 15.

The petitioner submitted that influential persons had encroached on vast forest areas in different districts of the province.

He quoted a press report and said that a total of 108,549 acres of forest land were encroached.

The petitioner stated that 4,317 acres were encroached in Sukkur, 5,092 acres in Shikarpur, 1,478 acres in Khairpur, 4,970 acres in Ghotki, 5,032 acres in Naushahro Feroze, 1,570 acres in Larkana and 5,280 acres in Dadu were encroached.

He pointed out that forests in the province were sprawled over 600,000 acres in 1980 and now they were shrunk to a few thousands.

He prayed to court to direct the provincial authorities to produce entire record of the forest land leased out from 1985.

Notice to CAA

A division bench headed by Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi issued notices to the Civil Aviation Authority and other respondents for flouting the court’s order on the award of a tender for establishment of petrol and CNG station and related facilities at the Jinnah International Airport, adds PPI.

The bench also put the federal law officer on notice and adjourned the hearing to a date to be later fixed by the court’s office.

The petitioner, Al-Manaal Rice Processing Mills, submitted that earlier on January 3rd the court had restrained the CAA officials from executing the tender. However, he said, the CAA officials awarded the tender despite the restraining order by the court.

The counsel for the petitioner firm stated that the CAA on Aug 30, 2012 had invited bids for establishing the petrol and gas station and related facilities along Malir Cantt Road near the Jinnah International Airport.

The petitioner submitted that he had applied for the tender and completed all requirements. He said there were four bidders who participated in the bidding process and, subsequently, bidding of tender was awarded to another bidder in violation of the Public Procurement Rules.

The petitioner prayed to the court to declare the awarded tender as illegal and direct the respondents to issue fresh process of bidding in accordance with the law.

Illegal detention

Another bench headed by Justice Maqbool Baqar directed the home secretary, the then district police chief of Hyderabad and other police officials to furnish their respective replies in a case of alleged illegal confinement of a petitioner’s husband.

The bench was seized with the petition of Azra Korai who alleged that the then senior superintendent of police of Hyderabad had illegally detained her husband.