KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has directed the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board to file a statement about the details of its employees occupying the accommodations of meant for staffers of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi also asked the director-administration of the KWSB that the information about the rent being paid to the water utility to be provided in the statement.

It also sought details whether the rent of the KMC accommodations in the possession of the employees of KWSB had been deducted from their salaries and such deductions were mentioned in their salary slips.

The bench further directed the KWSB official to provide proof of payment of such collection of rent of properties, owned by the corporation, to the KMC by KWSB.

At the outset of the hearing, the KMC submitted its report while the director administration-KWSB informed the bench that numerous employees of KWSB were occupying the accommodations of KMC and they were paying rent directly to the water utility.

The KMC in its report stated that its officials along with officers of KWSB carried out a joint survey of the official accommodations, which had been sublet by the employees of KWSB to their relatives and now they were not residing there.

Now, it is the responsibility of KWSB as well as estate department of KMC to vacate the same and hand over physical possession to the accommodation department of the KMC in order to comply with the SHC order, it added.

The KMC report further submitted that the process to vacate such accommodations would not be possible without police and other law enforcement agencies.

The KMC said that the KWSB might be asked if it has any agreement that proved that KWSB employees could possess KMC accommodation till their retirement as the KMC had no such agreement.

The bench was hearing a set of petitions filed in 2009, 2011 and onwards against encroachments on parks and some KMC employees seeking official accommodations after being displaced from the Jahangir park.

Earlier, the KMC had provided a list of 71 employees of the KWSB who were residing in KMC accommodations while KWSB placed a list of five employees of the KMC living in its quarters and said that 31 KMC accommodations had been vacated by KWSB employees.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2022