Education EDO told to stop ignoring court orders

Students studying in a dilapidated school building that could ‘collapse anytime’.

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) instructed Education EDO on Wednesday to stop ‘avoiding’ the court and to respond to the SHC’s queries in a case on the dilapidated condition of a school building.

Education EDO Muhammad Ibrahim Kumbhar finally appeared in court on Wednesday after the court had issued bailable warrants for his production in court. Earlier, he had been ‘willfully defying’ the notices issued to him by the court.

Petitioner Muhammad Shafiq approached the SHC against City District Government Karachi’s (CDGK) education department authorities for not evacuating students from the dilapidated building of the Pakistan Public School, built on his Plot No 22/50, Sheet No 22, Model Colony, Malir.

He cited Provincial Secretary and Additional Secretary of the education and literacy department, Education EDO, Works and Services DO and principal of the Pakistan Public School as respondents.

Advocate Khalid Pervez said that the petitioner was the legal owner of the plot, where the school was built decades ago. In 1972, the school was nationalised and its administrative control was given to the provincial education department. Later it was handed over to the city government.

The counsel said that the building was very old and could collapse any time since the steel structures were rusting and the plaster was falling from the roofs and walls.

He said that the nazim of UC-1, Malir Town, moved an application to the Sindh Education Minister Pir Mazharul Haq, seeking orders for the education department to vacate the building and accommodate the students in a nearby school’s building. According to Pervez, the education minister had issued clear directives in this regard but the EDO was not paying any attention to the matter and was putting the lives of hundreds of students and teaching staff in danger.

The counsel asked the court to order the CDGK education department to ensure repairs of the building and to accommodate the students, whose lives and future was at stake.

SHC division bench ordered: “In response to order of bailable warrants, Muhammad Ibrahim Kumbhar, EDO (Education), CDGK is present in person and submits he shall make best efforts to comply with directives of Senior Minister for Education as contained in letter dated December 11, 2010”. The letter directed the EDO to ensure that the students studying in the school should remain safe and be moved to a nearby school while repairs were carried out at their school.

Adjourning the hearing for two weeks, the court further ordered: “The above named officer present in person is cautioned to respond to the queries of court on time instead of avoiding appearing in person.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 13^th, 2011.