KARACHI: Govt told to curb pollution within two months
KARACHI, Sept 5: The Sindh High Court on Friday gave the provincial government, the city district government, the traffic police and the regional transport authority two months to curb the air and noise pollution.
Additional Advocate-General Sarwar Khan and CDGK counsel Manzoor Ahmed submitted before a division bench comprising Justices Munib Ahmed Khan and Rana Mohammad Shamim that measures had been taken to improve the situation created by traffic congestion and defective vehicles, including rickshaws, but they would take time to yield results.
The bench was hearing a petition moved by Advocate Qazi Ali Athar who said the pollution levels in Karachi had reached alarming levels with the increase in lead level. The Supreme Court first took notice of the health hazards caused by the rising pollution in 1996 and constituted a committee to work out a solution. Several orders had since been passed by the Supreme Court and the Sindh High Court but there was lack of will at the official level to take action. The public vehicles, for instance, must obtain a fitness certificate every month from the RTA’s vehicle fitness centre at Saeedabad, Karachi, but this provision of law was also being violated.
DHA Phase IX land
Disposing of a petition by residents of village Haji Muhammad Jukhio, Deh Kotero, Malir, the bench directed the land utilization department to hear the petitioners and scrutinize their documents to ensure that the land properly allotted to them was not re-allotted to anybody else, including the Defence Housing Authority. The department was asked to complete the scrutiny of documents within three months after conducting a proper survey.
The bench also brought on record DHA counsel Anwar Mansoor Khan’s assurance that the authority had no intention to claim any piece of land except the land allotted to it by the Sindh government. The counsel said the petitioners may approach the provincial land utilization department to obtain documents containing the limits of their plots so that the DHA could not touch them and confine itself to its own land. The petitioners were represented by Advocate Adnan Memon.
Disposing of another land dispute case, the bench asked the land utilization department to decide the application of a madrassah for allotment of 200 acres claimed by it at Deh Rehri, Landhi, within three months. It held that the petitioner madrasah, Darul Uloom Jamia Mustafa Madani, could not claim allotment of the land as a matter of right.
The petitioner had complained that the land belonged to it but was being unlawfully occupied by encroachers. It said it had applied for allotment but its application was not being decided by the department. The claim was contested the counsel for the department, M. Ahmed Pirzada, who said the land belonged to the provincial government.
CDGK claim rejected
The bench upheld the provincial government’s ownership of 2,000 acres at K-28, Hawksbay. The ruling came on a Shehri petition which maintained that the provincial government had transferred 2,000 acres in Scheme 42 to the Karachi Development Authority, since merged into the city district government. The public interest organization said the land was re-allotted by the provincial government. The court ordered an inquiry into the matter and an inquiry committee headed by the chief secretary supported the provincial government claim.
Advocate M. Ahmed Pirzada submitted on behalf of the land utilization department that the land had already been allotted and the lessees were only being asked to pay the price differential.
Karsaz tribunal
Another bench comprising Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Zafar Ahmed Khan Sherwani asked Additional Advocate-General Masood Noorani to make a definite statement and submit a notification on the fate of the tribunal appointed to probe the October 18, 2007, blasts at Karsaz, Karachi, during PPP leader Benazir Bhutto’s welcome rally on her return home.
A petition against the appointment of the tribunal moved by Sindh PPP chief Syed Qaim Ali Shah came up before the bench and his counsel, Haider Ali Sundarani, submitted that according to his information, the tribunal had already been disbanded and the petition could be disposed of as having borne fruit.
AAG Masood Noorani sought