Land matters: Warrants issued for LERP project director’s arrest

Director has not appeared in court, despite repeated orders to do so

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) issued on Monday for the second time bailable warrants for the arrest of the project director of the Lyari Expressway Rehabilitation Project (LERP) for not appearing in court despite the court's clear directives.

A division bench, headed by Justice Nadeem Akhtar, directed the relevant SSP to arrest the project director and produce him in the court by July 4.

On June 20, the court had issued bailable arrest warrants, in the sum of Rs100,000, for arrest of the director as he failed to appear in the court with the relevant records relating to the petitioner's plot. They ordered the relevant SSP to execute the warrant on the officer and produce him in court on June 27.



On Monday, the additional SHO of the Sharae Faisal police station, Muhammad Tariq, filed a compliance report on behalf of the SHO. He stated that the warrant was received by his police station on June 25 and as such it could not be executed due to shortage of time. He requested for more time to execute the same.

The two judges recalled that on the last date of the hearing bailable warrants against the project director were issued and it was specifically ordered that the same shall be executed by the SSP concerned, who was to ensure the presence of the project director before the court.

Repeating the bailable warrants, the judges ordered that the SSP concerned 'shall ensure the presence of the project director before the court on the next date of the hearing'. They also cautioned the police officer that if he failed to produce the suspect, 'the SSP concerned shall be called in person on the following date of the hearing'.

Case history

The bench was hearing a petition regarding the non-payment of compensation to a petitioner, Gul Jan, whose land was acquired for the project.

The petitioner, who is working at the SHC as gardener, had said that he was allotted two plots, numbers 622 and 625, in lieu of his land. However, one of Jan's neighbours, Sher Khan, got one of the plots allotted to his relatives in connivance with the deputy district revenue officer and district coordination officer. He had pleaded the court order the authorities to retrieve his land and hand it over to him.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 28^th, 2016.