Illegal plazas: ‘Buildings should have been forfeited instead of destroyed’

CJP says SC, at the time, should have ordered plazas be handed to authorities

LAHORE: Chief Justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar on Tuesday took the benefit of hindsight and said it would have been better to have illegally constructed plazas forfeited to authorities instead of demolishing them. He was referring to a previous order of the SC.

“If we (current SC judges) were taking up this matter that time, we should not have ordered the demolition of buildings constructed beyond the approved plan. Instead, we should have ordered they be forfeited to the Lahore Development Authority”, CJ Nisar said. He was heading a two-member bench at SC Lahore Registry which took up the matter of high-rise buildings. He said it was better to utilise those buildings instead of demolishing them. Justice Umar Ata Bandial was the other member of the bench.

In 2007, following the order of a two-judge bench of the SC, various high-rise buildings were razed and their owners were slapped with hefty fines. The matter was brought up in the court by LHC Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah who was not a judge at the time.



The CJP at the time, while taking up the matter of illegalities committed at the Siddique Trade Centre, a famous shopping mall on Gulberg Main Boulevard, remarked that if the building plan was not duly approved and not complied with, the building should be pulled down. Counsel for the plaza owner said they had submitted a building plan which was deemed to be approved on the same day. A local commission, formed by the court, found the plaza administration used land allocated for a mosque, emergency exit and washrooms.

The report of the commission also revealed that the owners constructed shops in an area specified for motorcycle parking in the basement. They also placed electricity generators on the rooftop, which was against the building plan. The counsel for the plaza owners tried to justify his client’s position by saying they paid Rs2.5 million as a penalty for the generator.

Justice Nisar remarked it was criminal negligence to obstruct emergency exits. He directed the counsel of the LDA to file a comprehensive report on illegalities committed on the construction of the building within a month. He also ordered the counsel to also determine if the act of the plaza owner falls under criminal legal provisions.

The matter of Salar Centre, a shopping plaza at Barkat Market, was also taken up. Counsel for the plaza administration submitted that they paid Rs50 million as a penalty for constructing three additional storeys beyond the sanctioned five-storey building. He said Justice (Retired) Faqir Muhammad Khokhar stopped the recovery of that amount, but then the LDA issued a notice for the money. The court sought a reply from LDA within three months.

The court also took up the matter of Boby Plaza on GT Road. The commission ordered the demolition of the whole plaza as its construction was against the approved plan and it encroached upon land of the public road.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2017.