KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has come down hard on the lawyer for the Cantonment Board Malir for setting up cattle markets on lands owned by private entities.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Zafar Ahmed Rajput remarked that it was not the domain of the cantonment board or its officials to set up or run cattle markets.

When the bench asked the lawyer for the cantonment board whether they were mandated to run businesses, he replied that the board was just providing services.

The court deplored that the petition had been pending for quite some time but the cantonment board filed a reply after an inordinate delay. The court adjourned the hearing till Jan 20 as the lawyer for petitioner sought time to go through the comments filed by the cantonment board.

SBCA chief summoned to explain frequent transfers of officials

A private housing society — the Pakistan Navy (CNGE) Cooperative Housing Society — through its lawyer Nasir Tarar filed a petition in 2016 against the cantonment board for setting up a cattle market on its land before Eidul Azha.

SBCA chief summoned

The same bench on Wednesday summoned the director general of the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) observing that frequent transfers of officials were frustrating its various orders against illegal constructions in the city.

It observed that frequent transfers of public servants were affecting their morale and weaken administration, which could not be termed “good governance”.

At the outset of the hearing, SBCA official Syed Mohammad Zia appeared before the bench and filed a report in compliance with an earlier order.

He informed the bench that the competent authority had reshuffled/transferred the directors of different districts as he was transferred from South to East and then posted as deputy director-Malir.

He submitted that he had requested the current deputy director-South to make compliance of an earlier order about illegal constructions, but he neither appeared nor filed a compliance report.

The bench observed in its order that it appeared that in many identical petitions on the subject of illegal constructions various orders had been passed by this court requiring compliance of the directions, which are being frustrated by way of making frequent transfers/postings of the officers/officials of SBCA.

It further observed that in the present case the officer in question had been transferred twice in three weeks, which in fact had not only hindered and impeded the compliance of the court orders but also amounted to defiance of such orders.

The bench directed the SBCA chief to appear in person along with a comprehensive report on Dec 4 and also asked its office to communicate this order to the secretary of the local government department for information and compliance.

The bench has been passing various orders almost on a daily basis against removal of illegal constructions, prosecution against builders/owners of such buildings and action against SBCA officials for allowing such constructions on identical petitions filed against illegal constructions across the city.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2021