SHC seeks response on contempt plea against HAD DG’s appointment

Court had earlier ruled that the incumbent DG was ineligible to hold the post

HYDERABAD: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has put the chief secretary, Director General of Hyderabad Development Authority and other respondents on notice in a contempt plea filed against the appointment of Ghulam Muhammad Qaimkhani as acting HDA DG. The Hyderabad Circuit Bench directed on Thursday the respondents to submit their replies on October 22.

In his contempt plea on Thursday, Advocate Sajjad Ahmed Chandio pointed out a violation of the SHC's August 1 order through which the court had given two days to the Sindh government to appoint a permanent HDA DG by removing Qaimkhani who held the acting charge. In a belated compliance of that order, the provincial government appointed Muhammad Nawaz Soho as the DG on September 5 but his short-lived tenure ended on September 27, when the government again replaced Soho with Qaimkhani.

"The HDA DG is a BPS-20 cadre post which has also been stated in a 2014 SHC judgment. And Qaimkhani is a non-cadre officer," Chandio, who has been fighting a case for two years for the supply of clean drinking water in Hyderabad besides challenging other HDA and Water and Sanitation Agency related problems, told the court.

The 2014 order of SHC Karachi, which was cited in his contempt plea, had declared Qaimkhani ineligible for the post. "... [Qaimkhani] has already served as HDA DG for more than 3 years and he is still claiming the post as a vested right notwithstanding that he is not eligible to hold a cadre post," the SHC had observed. The court had further ordered the Sindh government to post a cadre officer as the HDA DG.

HDA consists of planning and development control, WASA and housing as its main wings. The authority has been overseeing multi-billion rupee development projects. It is also developing a mega-housing project, Gulistan-e-Sarmast Housing Scheme in Kohsar, against which it has reportedly collected over Rs6 billion from the allotees of tens of thousands of plots.

Chandio also claimed in his contempt case that the other orders of the SHC regarding the laying of new water supply and drainage lines, installing water meters at car service stations and charging appropriate water bills from the commercial consumers have still not been complied with.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 4^th, 2019.