ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court was asked on Tuesday to consider revisiting its June 14 dir­e­c­tive to the Sindh government for clearing the land on both sides of the Gujjar and Orangi nullahs.

Last month’s order has resulted in the displacement of over 50,000 people so far.

The review petition, which was moved by a citizen, Naimutallah Khan, through senior counsel Faisal Siddiqui highlighted the consequence of the order that resulted in the continuing demolition of thousands of houses/buildings/structures and dispossession of over 50,000 people, without any immediate substantive compensation or temporary rehabilitation for the purpose of clearance of both nullahs and for the construction of 30-foot-wide road on both sides of the nullahs.

Advocate Siddiqui told Dawn that he would soon be moving a separate application before the Supreme Court with a request to Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed to constitute a larger bench to hear the review petition.

The petition pleaded before the apex court to review and set aside the June 14 order of the apex court in which the SC had ordered the Sindh government, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the Karachi Administrator to clear all lands of both nullahs and the right of way.

By naming 43 respondents, the petitioner pleaded that applicants were legitimate leaseholders having vested rights who had only approached the apex court in order to be treated in accordance with due process of law.

According to the petition, the June 14 order had ignored to give findings whether any demolitions could be conducted by the government and its relevant authorities for building a 30-foot-wide road on each side of the two nullahs.

An absence of finding on this critically important issue was an error apparent and floating on the face of the record, the petitioner stated, adding the court also ignored its earlier August 12, 2020 judgement by which the NDMA was said to be responsible for removing encroachments to clean the nullahs while the Sindh government and its functionaries were given the responsibility of rehabilitating all persons affected by the demolition of their houses, structures.

The SC order had not directed the government to demolish any house/building/structure for building the 30-foot-wide road, the petition highlighted.

The petitioner argued that the omission to determine this issue legitimised the “contemptuous and illegal” demolitions being carried out by the government agencies for the construction of “illegal roads”. Secondly, the provincial government neither disclosed nor presented any plan, based on law, on the basis of which the houses/buildings/structures were being razed for road construction.

Thirdly, in view of the fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 23 and 24 of the Constitution, no acquisition of property through demolition, for purposes of a public project, like a public road, could take place, except in accordance with the law i.e. Land Acquisition Act, 1894. Therefore, for these reasons, the June 14 direction of the Supreme Court suffered from errors apparent and floating on the face of the record, the review petition contended.

Likewise, the June 14 order was based on unverified presumptions, which firstly seemed to be a general order regarding the clearance of land for both Gujjar and Orangi nullahs and their right of way without any finding or determination about the length and breadth of such nullahs and their right of way, the petition argued. This determination was critical because without an authentic mapping of the exact dimensions of Gujjar and Orangi nullahs and their right of way, no general order could be passed for the wholesale demolition of houses/buildings/structures, leading to demolition of thousands of houses/buildings/structures and dispossession of over 50,000 people, the petitioner said.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2021