The Moon Garden residential complex was found by the Supreme Court to have been built illegally on land originally belonging to the cooperative housing society. PHOTO: FILE
KARACHI: The Supreme Court (SC) expressed on Friday its extreme displeasure over the illegal allotment of the Pakistan Railways Employees Cooperative Housing Society's land, where the builder had built a residential complex in the Gulshan-e-Iqbal neighbourhood.
Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar, who headed the two-judge bench, expressed dismay over the state of the relevant institutions that are themselves involved in illegal allotment of the land.
The top judge remarked that it was difficult to understand that which department should be assigned the responsibility of investigating the facts of the case.
The bench that also comprised Justice Amir Hani Muslim was hearing the matter relating to illegal allotment of the cooperative society's land to the builder, who had built the Moon Garden residential complex in violation of the relevant laws.
During the proceedings, the society's lawyer, Faisal Siddiqui, informed the judges that the society was allotted 63 acres of land but the revenue authorities had illegally cancelled allotment of four acres of such land without providing any reason.
He alleged that such land was illegally allotted to the private person, who had erected constructions in violation of the laws. Now, people are living there illegally, he added.
The bench members came down hard on the revenue officials over their failure to protect the government land, which had been encroached upon by individuals along the railway tracks within the city limits.
Justice Hani observed that hundreds of people were involved in land grabbing, adding that people were raising houses at the (state) lands, wherever those were found vacant.
He inquired from the revenue and railways officials that who was responsible for the construction of the thousands of houses on the land belonging to the railways on either side of the tracks.
The bench ordered the provincial Board of Revenue's senior member to submit the record relating to the allotment of the piece of the land in question to the court. The case was fixed at the SC's principal seat in Islamabad for further hearing.
Earlier, the apex court had, in November, 2015, suspended the operation of the Sindh High Court's order regarding demolition of the residential complex, Moon Garden, as it was found built illegally on land originally belonging to the cooperative housing society.
In September, 2015, an SHC bench had ordered the authorities to disconnect civic facilities to the building, which was also ordered to be vacated.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 28th, 2017.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ