KARACHI: The Supreme Court has ordered the demolition of over 35 wedding halls on Korangi Road as it held that these structures were built on the land meant for residential purposes.

The apex court dismissed two applications moved by the owners of the wedding halls, situated near Korangi Crossing, against its earlier orders and ruled that the land was liable to be reverted back to its original residential use.

A three-judge bench headed by then Chief Justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed and comprising Justice Ijaz Ul Ahsan and Justice Qazi Mohammad Amin Ahmed had reserved the order on the applications last year.

The order, authored by Justice Ahsan, said that the wedding halls were built upon residential plots and encroached land and liable to be demolished in terms of the earlier orders of the apex court.

SC rules owners of wedding halls on Korangi Road lack documentation about land regularisation

It said that the applicants were owners of the wedding halls located on main Korangi Road and the land was purportedly allotted to them by Dar-us-Salam Cooperative Housing Society and Lucknow Housing Society Korangi.

In October 2020, the owners, who claimed to be the bona fide purchasers of the land, received a common notice to vacate the marriage halls as the same were illegally constructed.

The administrative committee of the apex court headed by then CJP in its meeting held on Oct 17, 2020 had, inter alia, directed the commissioner to demolish the illegal wedding halls and thereafter, the applicants filed a suit in the high court and later approached the Supreme Court, it added.

The order further said that the directives of the administrative committee were not fresh rather issued to ensure enforcement and implementation of the earlier judicial order of the apex court passed in a petition filed in 2010 by former city Nazim Naimatullah Khan.

“There is nothing in the law that prevents this court to hold administrative meetings with concerned agencies/functionaries to ensure that orders passed in public interest are being implemented,” it added.

Regarding a contention of the applicants’ lawyer, the order stated that nothing had been brought to the attention of the court to establish that the meeting of administrative committee was in any way improper or the directions passed could not have been passed.

It added that the argument that the direction was passed as the chairman of the apex court’s administrative committee implying that it was an original order was misconceived and accordingly repelled.

The apex court noted that admittedly, the land in question, claimed by the applicants/interveners, was residential in nature and they only claimed that they had acquired necessary permissions from the housing society/authorities before the construction of marriage halls and they paid large sums of money for their land to be converted from residential use.

However, it said that the applicants admitted that they did not receive any letter about regularisation in respect of their properties stating that the same had been regularised as wedding halls or their residential land was converted into commercial land.

“We find the justification and the argument of the learned ASC [Advocate of Supreme Court] for the applicants/interveners to support his contentions without substance, and devoid of legal basis. Even otherwise, the learned Sr. ASC has been unable to show us anything from the record which could establish that the plots/marriage halls were regularized/converted after due process and in accordance with law and the applicable rules and regulations,” the SC order said.

It stated that admittedly, the applicants did not have documentation about regularisation and nothing was shown from the record to suggest that any complaint whatsoever was made to any authority about not having received regularisation letters.

Having pressing commercial and economic interests, the allotttees acted per haste and on their own risk to build illegal structures and they cannot now be allowed to seek protection alleging pressure from societies by constructing marriage halls on residential plots, it added.

“The fact that the applicants/interveners did not have their regularization letters is enough for us to hold that the marriage halls were illegally constructed upon residential plots and are liable to be demolished,” the apex court observed.

It said that the judges were unable to subscribe to the view that the land had been automatic regularised since applications were submitted and some fees deposited.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2022