KARACHI: The Sindh Building Control Authority has unsealed a squash complex built by legendary sportsman Jahangir Khan after the Sindh High Court dismissed a lawsuit filed against him for illegally constructing the club, it emerged on Monday.

According to sources, the SBCA unsealed the premises it had sealed earlier due to severe illegalities on the basis of “services rendered for the country” by the squash legend.

The sources said that Mr Khan was sacked from the Pakistan International Airlines, where he worked, and he approached the services tribunal, which ordered his reinstatement. However, the airlines did not want his services so it gave him the PIA’s Jahangir Khan Squash Complex situated on Kashmir Road.

The squash complex is located near the mausoleum of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and falls within an area where the height of any building could not be higher than that of the Mazar’s podium level.

Though the civic agencies gave permission to Mr Khan for addition, alteration, renovation, etc, the player demolished the squash complex and constructed a new building even higher than the earlier structure. The new building was over 51 feet high against the allowable height of 19 feet in the area.

Later, Mr Khan started a membership drive — charging Rs525,000 as membership fee — for the Jahangir Khan Sports Club, which offered many commercial facilities like restaurants, cinema, auditorium, boutiques, shops, etc, despite the fact that the club was constructed on an amenity plot where commercial activities were not allowed.

The SBCA sealed the premises after the media highlighted these irregularities.

Abdul Karim Abbasi, a resident of Akhtar Colony, also filed a lawsuit in the Sindh High Court against Mr Khan, the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, the Quaid-i-Azam Mazar Management Board, PIA and others stating that the building was constructed in violation of building regulations and needed to be demolished and that it was on an amenity plot where commercial activities could not be carried out.

The court had sought a report from the SBCA regarding the construction and the SBCA submitted that the construction was in violation of the approved building plan and also violated the height restriction imposed by the law relating to the Quaid’s mausoleum. It also informed the court that the SBCA had sealed the premises due to these illegalities.

The sources said that plaintiff Abbasi was very active in the court at that time and had obtained a stay order from the court. However, he gradually lost interest in the litigation and eventually filed an application in court for the withdrawal of the case.

On May 16, the SHC allowed his application and dismissed the suit as withdrawn after counsel Mohammad Ali Lakhani submitted that the plaintiff did not wish to pursue this matter any more.

With this order at his disposal, Mr Khan approached the SBCA on May 29 requesting it to unseal the Jahangir Khan Squash Complex on plot No ST 5, Kashmir Road.

The request was made through a letter, which said that the approval of the building plan was obtained and a new building was constructed keeping in mind the requirements of a modern squash complex. This resulted in the increase in the height of the squash complex building from the old one, which was unavoidable due to maintaining requirements of international standard. When the construction was almost complete the SBCA sealed the squash complex on Oct 25, 2013. The sportsman requested for the unsealing so that the squash complex could be made operational for the betterment of sports activities at the local and national level and grooming the youngsters for future.

Responding to Mr Khan’s request, an SBCA deputy director (Jamshed Town) in his June 23, 2014 communication to the squash player, stated that the competent authority i.e. the director general, SBCA, “has been pleased to de-seal the premises on the basis of your services in sport [squash] for Pakistan”.

Mr Khan gave an undertaking to the SBCA on June 23 that “we will not raise further more construction on Jahangir Khan Squash Complex. In future any adverse order from the honourable high court regarding above-mentioned project we will follow the orders”.

He was referring to another litigation relating to the illegal construction of the Jahangir Khan Squash Complex, which is still pending in the SHC. Navaid Husain, the architect of the original Jahangir Khan Squash Complex which Mr Khan had demolished, had filed a petition against Jahangir Khan and others requesting that the illegally constructed new building be demolished and the old structure be reconstructed.

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2014