The Sindh High Court (SHC) has ordered the Sindh Building Control Authority to ensure that the amenity land of a storm water drain, known as Nehar-e-Khayam, is not converted into residential and commercial property by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation.
The court's Nazir [official] has also been appointed as a commissioner to carry out physical inspection of the drain to ascertain the facts about the status of its alleged conversion. The commissioner will submit its report before September 20, when the matter will be taken up again.
These directives came on a petition filed by Amina Jilani against the conversion of the storm water drain's land by the KMC authorities. The KMC administrator, SBCA director-general, the land utilisation department secretary, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) chief executive and others were named as respondents in the petition.
Last week, she had gone to the court, saying that she had purchased a plot in KDA Scheme No.5 only because of presence of amenity land there. She claimed that an amenity plot has been earmarked in the scheme's master plan for a storm drain.
Jilani recalled that, back in 1990, the then city district government had intended to generate revenue by selling this amenity space in violation of the relevant laws. The officials had carved out eight plots along with two corner plots from the drain's land. Later, the KMC had to cancel such illegal conversions after some aggrieved parties challenged it in the court, she added.
Her lawyer, Abdur Rahman, informed the judges that unlawful construction is once again being carried out on the drain's land, which is being filled with sand. The lawyer argued that a piece of land reserved for amenity purposes cannot be used for any other purpose. The amenity land's use for other purposes is a blatant violation of the building and other related laws, he added.
The court was pleaded to declare the conversion as illegal. A direction was sought for the KMC authorities to desist from indulging in such illegal practices. After the preliminary hearing, the court issued notices to the official respondents to respond on the petition.
At the last hearing, the two judges had barred the KMC authorities from converting the amenity space into plots until further orders. Meanwhile, notices were issued to the respondents to file their comments about the illegal land conversion.
On Thursday, Advocate Abdur Rahman requested the court order an inspection of the land in question to determine the actual position of the said conversion. Headed by Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar, the bench ordered the SBCA director-general to ensure that the drain's land is not converted for any other purpose, except to what it was originally meant for.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 20th, 2014.
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