KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Friday issued notices to the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) on a petition against non-provision of potable water to the city’s rural areas.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Irfan Saadat Khan put the KWSB managing director and director-finance as well as the advocate general Sindh on notice for Sept 22.

Some residents of Malir district moved the SHC submitting that the KWSB had issued certain notifications in 2016 for providing drinking water to the people residing in the rural areas of the provincial metropolis.

However, the counsel for the petitioner argued that the same was not done and thereafter a petition was filed in SHC in 2019 and the same was decided in October 2020 with a direction to the KWSB to implement its notifications and directives were also issued to the petitioners to approach the water utility.

The petitioners further maintained that they had approached the respondents for implementation of the notifications, but no concrete step had so far been taken to provide water to the rural areas.

The SHC upholds 10-year imprisonment handed down to two officials in a Dadu land scam case

The petitioners’ lawyer argued that access to clean drinking water was the fundamental right of his clients as guaranteed under the Constitution.

He added that the KWSB had already endorsed these notifications before the SHC and the water utility could not take away the rights of petitioners.

He further maintained that the failure on part of the KWSB to implement its notifications as well as the directives of the SHC was illegal and unconstitutional.

He sought directives for the respondents to implement its notifications as well as the earlier order of the SHC and provide water from Hawkesbay, Gadap, Ghaggar and till Ibrahim Hyderi along with the benefits of 2016 notifications.

Conviction of mukhtiarkars upheld

Another division bench on Friday dismissed the appeals of two former officials of the Sindh Revenue Board (SRB) against their conviction by a trial court.

An accountability court had handed down 10-year imprisonment to mukhtiarkars Asadullah Solangi and Ali Akbar for tampering with the record and making fake entries regarding over 370 acres in Dadu.

The convicts, through their counsel, had filed their appeals against the judgement of the trial court and after hearing both sides and examining the record and proceedings of the case the two-judge bench headed by Justice K.K. Agha dismissed the appeals.

No clue to child missing since 2018

The SHC has directed the police to recover a child, who went missing from the OPD of the Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK) in 2018.

The investigating officer submitted that he was making efforts for the recovery of the missing child and steps had been taken to record the statement of the petitioner while police had also interrogated a woman working in the CHK.

The IO maintained that he visited all the orphanages of the city and sought more time to inspect the remaining orphanages of the province in order to locate the whereabouts of the child.

While adjourned the hearing till Oct 13, a two-judge bench headed by Justice Salahuddin Panhwar asked the IO to take all possible efforts to ensure recovery of the child.

A woman had moved the SHC in 2018 stating that she took her three-year-old son to the CHK on May 8, 2018 for a check-up, but he went missing when she was busy in obtaining a token in the OPD.

Earlier, the SHC had directed the provincial authorities to release funds to install equipment and facilities at the CHK in order to rectify the deficiencies highlighted in a judicial inquiry conducted by a district judge on the directive of the SHC issued in October 2018 after the hospital administration admitted that the CCTV cameras installed in the OPD block were not functioning.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2021