ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered cancellation of the allotment of lands to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation Employees Cooperative Society (KMCECS) after declaring the 200 acres of proprietary rights to the society as illegal.

Headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed, a two-judge SC bench also held the approval granted by the Sindh government as void with a direction to the Karachi administrator to forthwith retrieve the lands allotted to the society.

The bench had taken up the case relating to the illegal allotment of amenity plots for commercial and residential purposes at the Gutter Baghicha area.

Karachi administrator ordered to retrieve 200 acres forthwith

At the last hearing on Dec 28, 2021, the court was told by Shehri’s Amber Alibhai that the entire land of Gutter Baghicha was meant for amenity plots.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court observed that apparently the approval granted to the society regarding the allotment of plots was issued by a section officer since the approval letter did not have any mention of the competent authority on the sanctioning of which the lands was allotted.

Under the laws, such amenity plots could only be utilised for educational, religious or welfare purposes for the good of the people of the area but the cooperative society was neither individual, nor any organisation or a government institution, the court regretted.

In its order, the court observed that the allotment of plots to the housing society did not fall within the meaning of the welfare purposes.

The court observed that the KMC allotted 200 acres of Gutter Baghicha to its 80 employees.

During the hearing, senior counsel representing the society highlighted before the apex court that around 300,000 people lived in the society also cautioning that it should also consider the basic rights of widows who would be rendered homeless in case of any adverse order by the court.

The counsel also highlighted that the present case had been filed at the behest of those who were behind the Lyari gang warefare.

However, the court made it clear that the SC had to keep the interest and the fundamental rights of the people living in Karachi and also dropped hints that the court would also take the cases relating to the illegal allotment of lands to different society which initially owned by the Pakistan Railways as well as many other government departments.

The court while making it clear that the KMC cannot dole out its lands either directly or indirectly to its employees also wondering should the apex court distribute its lands to its employees when it possess parks, lawns and different plots.

The court observed that the land owned by the court was meant only for the Supreme Court and not its judges.

Earlier, during the Dec 28 hearing in Karachi, the court had ordered the authorities to immediately restore Gutter Baghicha and remove all encroachments built on it. “For a city with a population of 30 million, there should at least be 300,000 parks,” the chief justice had remarked then.

This is the same case in which the court earlier had ordered removal of Murtaza Wahab as the administrator of Karachi with an observation that Wahab had failed the people of the city. But after two apologies from the administrator, the court had taken back its order and instructed Wahab to keep politics separate from his job.

In 1993, NGO Shehri had approached the apex court that the KMC society had illegally secured 200 acres for itself by converting the Gutter Baghicha amenity land to industrial, residential, and commercial use, which would destroy the environment.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2022