Court stays demolition of shops in Nursery

Shopkeepers have challenge SBCA for telling them to remove additional structures

KARACHI:

Akbar Ali and 14 other shopkeepers have challenged the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) for telling them to remove additional structures in Nursery furniture market.

They submitted in a constitutional petition that they were lawful owners of the shops in Block 6, PECHS  and that the land was allotted to them in 1956 for which they had already applied and deposited the regularisation fee as prescribed under the Sindh Building Control Ordinance 1979 and the Karachi Building Control and Town Planning Regulations 2002.

On March 12, SBCA Jamshed Town deputy director issued notices to the shopkeepers directing them to remove structures that violated the law by covering arcades and internal floors.

During Wednesday’s hearing, the shopkeepers stated that the shops were constructed according to building laws and asked the court grant a stay order against the demolition.

The division bench, headed by Justice Faisal Arab, restrained the authority from demolishing shops till March 24. Notices were also issued to the secretaries of the provincial culture and heritage, housing and town planning departments, the SBCA chief controller, Karachi administrator and heads of KESC, SSGC and KWSB for March 24.

‘Judges are accountable’

“All judges including me are accountable before the nation,” said Sindh High Court Chief Justice Mushir Alam on Wednesday.

Addressing a general body meeting of the SHC Bar Association on Youm-e-Tashakkur (Thanksgiving Day) to commemorate the restoration of judges under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO-II) of 2007, Alam said that for an independent judiciary, the judges need to have good relations with the bar.

President of the SHCBA Anwar Mansoor Khan said that bar associations and lawyers are aware of intrusion and interference of the administration in judicial matters.

“The independence of the judiciary is far more important than the executive’s independence,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 17^th, 2011.