Lyari Expressway compensation: DMC allowed to deposit Rs12m with court

Bench permits this in order to save the funds from lapsing at end of current fiscal year


Our Correspondent June 24, 2015
Bench permits this in order to save the funds from lapsing at end of current fiscal year. PHOTO: MOHAMMAD NOMAN/EXPRESS

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has allowed the district municipal corporation (DMC) of Karachi's Central district to deposit with the court an amount of Rs12 million earmarked for compensation to those affected by the Lyari Expressway project to save the funds from being lapsed in the outgoing fiscal year.

The court granted permission on a written request made by the Central district deputy commissioner and the Liaquatabad subdivision assistant commissioner in a case regarding the payment of compensation to the affectees of the project.

A group of citizens had taken the provincial chief secretary, the Karachi commissioner and administrator, the Lyari Expressway Resettlement Project director and others to court for failing to compensate them as announced when their properties were acquired for the project years ago.

They had later moved applications seeking contempt proceedings against the Central DC and Liaquatabad assistant commissioner for defying the court's orders about the compensation amount and payment.

The two officers claimed that the high court had, on May 15, directed the relevant authorities to pass the reward amount for the properties acquired from 12 Liaquatabad residents fairly and reasonably. The court had also restrained the authorities from demolishing the structures on the properties and undertaking any construction as part of the project until the reward was passed and the compensation paid.

They said that the Central DMC had passed the reward amount and issued notices to the petitioners to collect the compensation cheques and vacate their properties but the petitioners did not turn up to collect the amount.

The DC and assistant commissioner said that the funds earmarked for compensation had been approved by the relevant authority, were lying with the provincial revenue department and were likely to lapse when the current fiscal year ends on June 30. Therefore, they pleaded to the court to allow them to deposit the amount with the high court's nazir in order to prevent it from being lapsed.

A division bench, headed by Justice Sadiq Hussain Bhatti, allowed the officials to deposit the amount with the nazir, clarifying that this was entirely without prejudice to the case, the pending contempt application or the interim orders earlier passed by the court. The matter will be taken up again on August 4.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 25th, 2015. 

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