KARACHI: A division bench of the Sindh High Court has allowed the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) to not share the record of land with a court official until a single bench decides its application about the maintainability of a lawsuit challenging the misuse of cantonment land and land reclaimed from the sea.

The suit filed by Farhan Wazir and five other plaintiffs, mostly residents of the DHA, had approached a single bench of the SHC under the Whistleblower Protection and Vigilance Commission Ordinance, 2019 stating that reclaimed land was being misused while the land meant for cantonment purposes was also being used for commercial and gainful purposes.

They cited the defence secretary, the DHA, Cantonment Board Clifton, Karachi Cantonment Board, Cantonment Board Faisal, Civil Aviation Authority, Karachi Port Trust, Port Qasim Authority (PQA) and several other government authorities and private entities as defendants.

On Dec 1, the single bench had directed the DHA, CAA, PQA and others to provide record and documents of all the land allotted to them including the reclaimed land and its occupation after an official assignee in its report complained that the DHA was not willing to provide the requisite data.

DHA challenges maintainability of a suit against misuse of cantonment, reclaimed land

The DHA filed an intra-court appeal against the Dec 1 order stating that it had filed an application before the single bench about the maintainability of the suit, but instead of deciding it the court had ordered the appellant to provide its land record to the official assignee.

While disposing of the intra-court appeal, the two-judge bench comprising Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi and Justice Rashida Asad asked the single-judge bench to hear the application on the suit’s maintainability first and in the meanwhile implementation on the impugned order remained suspended and no adverse inference be drawn unless the application in question along with other listed applications are finally decided.

In the written order released on Wednesday, the division bench also directed both sides to appear before the single bench to file objections to all the pending applications as well as to the report of the official assignee.

DHA counsel Abid Zuberi filed an appeal before the division bench and argued that the directives were passed by the single bench on the recommendations of the official assignee’s report to which the appellant was intending to file objections.

He submitted that the report of the official assignee was based on the assistance of Marvi Mazhar who was never directed by the court to be associated with the exercise.

The lawyer further submitted that the DHA had also filed an application under Order 7, Rule 11 of the Civil Procedure Code to challenge the maintainability of the suit, but without deciding this issue directives had been issued to the appellant and others to file documents pursuant to the recommendations made by the official assignee in the report.

He stated that the single bench had also issued notices to DHA and others on another application seeking contempt proceedings against them for allegedly violating an earlier order of the bench barring the appellant and others from reclaiming further land from the shore, granting such land to anyone as well as creating third party interest and to ensure that land earlier sanctioned to them as public spaces should not be used for any commercial and gainful purposes.

Plaintiffs’ counsel Khawaja Shamsul Islam said that notices had not been issued to the defendants on the application filed by the appellant. He submitted that the single bench had not passed any adverse final order, but only asked the appellant to submit relevant documents.

After hearing both sides, the division bench said that apparently no final order was passed by the single bench and the appellant was at liberty to file objections on the report of the official assignee as well as assistance provided by Ms Mazhar in preparation of the report.

It asked the single bench to hear the DHA application and in the meanwhile the impugned order issued on the report of the official assignee shall not be implemented and no adverse inference be drawn unless the application in question along with other listed applications are finally decided.

Meanwhile, the DHA and others filed statements before the single-judge bench headed by Justice Zulfiqar Ahmad Khan on Wednesday and denied to have violated the court’s earlier order.

The station commander of the Corps V filed an application to become an intervener in the suit and Justice Khan directed his lawyer to satisfy the court about the maintainability of his application.

The advocate general sought time to file comments and the bench directed the lawyer for DHA to continue his arguments on an application questioning the maintainability of the suit and adjourned the hearing till Jan 10.

On Dec 1, Official Assignee Dr Chaudary Wasim Iqbal had filed his interim report stating that apparently DHA had been deliberately avoiding producing land allotment documents. He stated that architect Marvi Mazhar volunteered her service about the reclaimed land and to sketch the dimensions and she was requested to provide aerial mapping of the reclaimed land.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2021