KARACHI: ‘KBCA rules have no legal sanction’: SHC hears plea against high-rise
KARACHI, May 30: Karachi Building and Town Planning Regulations have no legal sanction as the Karachi Building Control Authority had no authority to formulate them after the promulgation of the Sindh Local Government Ordinance in 2002, a lawyer opposing the construction of a high-rise building near a school in front of the Boat Basin park argued on Friday.
Representing the non-governmental organization Shehri, which has been impleaded as an intervener in petitions by the builder and developer of the project and the Karachi Grammar School, Advocate Abdur Rahman said the regulations should have been promulgated by the city district government through its master plan group of offices or through the KBCA, which has also been brought under the CDGK control by the SLGO.
KBCA counsel Shahid Jamil Khan, however, said the KBCA had been constituted under the Sindh Building Control Ordinance, 1979, which remained intact after the promulgation of the SLGO. The KBCA drew its rightful authority from the provisions of the SBCO and lawfully formulated the KBTPR under them.
The 20-storeyed residential-cum-commercial complex is sought to be raised on a road adjacent to Boat Basin earmarked for setting up of a ‘food street’. However, the high court has set aside the commercialization notification issued by the CDGK. The builder moved a petition seeking a direction to the KBCA for giving the project its final approval.
The Grammar School moved a counter-petition saying it had about 900 pupils of tender age whose safety would be threatened by the project. Shehri joined in the proceedings as an intervener saying that the project would impair the environment in an area where a park was being developed for the sake of public health and entertainment. The builder’s counsel said the school was also a commercial enterprise and if a ban was to be imposed on commercial undertakings in the area, it should also apply to the institution.
Acting Chief Justice Azizullah M. Memon and Justice Arshad Noor Khan, who constitute the division bench hearing the petition, adjourned further hearing for fuller arguments but asked the KBCA to complete legal formalities for processing the project. The builder was, however, barred from creating any third party interest in the project.
Direction to the state bank
Another division bench consisting of Justices Mrs Qaiser Iqbal and Mahmood Alam Rizvi, meanwhile, directed the State Bank of Pakistan to formulate a policy framework for recovery and remission/readjustment of bad loans.
The direction came when SBP counsel Iqbal Haider submitted that there was no law besides the Financial Institutions (Recovery of Loans) Ordinance, 2001, which the commercial banks press into service for recovery of loans. The recovery teams employed by the banks to threaten their customers had no legal sanction. The entire recovery procedure as alleged by petitioner Anwar Mahmood and others was unlawful.
The bench also asked the respondent banks to submit lists of defaulters whose outstanding loans were remitted by them to help the court ascertain whether any uniform criterion was being followed by them or whether they were practising a policy of pick and choose. The investigation report submitted by the police in respect of petitioner Anwar Mahmood’s complaint against the high-handed matters used by the bank recovery teams was taken on record. The police was asked to furnish a copy of the report to the petitioner’s counsel, Tahmasp Rizvi and Haider Imam Rizvi. The banks were given 15 days to file their counter-affidavits and further hearing was adjourned until after the summer vacation to August 19. The interim order against harassment of the petitioner would, meanwhile, continue.
The bench also restrained the Karachi Port Trust from taking any coercive action against a warehouse on the Hawksbay Road. The warehouse is built over six acres of land also claimed by the KPT.
Bail amount reduced
Another division bench comprising Justices Munib Ahmed Khan and Syed Pir Ali Shah reduced the surety amount required to be deposited by lawyer-journalist Mohammad Iqbal Kazmi from Rs200,000 to Rs50,000 on humanitarian grounds.
Advocate Umar Farooq Khan appeared for the petitioner and submitted that he was in dire straits. He was standing trial for issuing dud cheques and proceedings were likely to take some time. Meanwhile, his dependants had no other bread-winner and he could not arrange a surety amount of Rs200,000 to secure his release.
Detention case
A petition moved by the father of Qari Saifullah, an alleged Al Qaeda activist, was, meanwhile, left over for paucity of time. Saifullah had been detained under the preventive detention provisions of the Anti-Terrorist Act but the petitioner’s counsel, Hashmat Habib, said there was no evidence against him except that his name had been mentioned by the later PPP chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, in her book. He said the detention, which had been extended by another notification, was illegal.