Gujjar Nullah affectees ineligible for compensation, SHC told

DC says ‘squatters’ will not be rehabilitated, lease of said land cancelled in 2015

KARACHI:

The bureaucracy has declared people evicted from their homes during the anti-encroachment operation along Gujjar Nullah ineligible for compensation.

These people are encroachers, therefore they do not deserve any compensation or rehabilitation, said the Central District deputy commissioner in his written response submitted before the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday.

The court has put the response of the DC concerned on record in the petition against non-payment of compensation to the Gujjar Nullah affectees.

A single-judge bench comprising Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar heard the petition in which DC Central submitted his response, claiming that the lease granted by the Sindh Katchi Abadi Authority (SKAA) was also illegal as lease could not be granted on land meant for water channel, hence, the affectees shall not be compensated in cash or rehabilitated at any other location.

He said the affectees were squatters who encroached upon the land of Gujjar Nullah by carrying out illegal construction.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan has ordered the demolition of illegally constructed buildings alongside the water streams. An operation was being carried out against the illegal construction alongside water channels in order to save people’s lives in case of heavy rains.

The DC, in his response, said that the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) has cancelled its lease granted in respect of the land alongside 30 big water streams and rainwater drains in 2015.

Case of fake NAB chairperson

The defence counsel for a man charged with emptying the pockets of allegedly corrupt officers to save them from the NAB chairperson, called for an inquiry questioning the victims why they paid the extortion money in the first place.

Read More: Nullah Leh — how natural channel turned into a drain

“Were the victims, including senior officers of home department, actually involved in corruption that they paid huge sums to the suspects to save them from NAB inquiry,” the defence counsel said in his arguments during the hearing of bail plea of Amir Hussain and his father Khalid Hussain.

The suspects, in jail for the past four months, allegedly extorted millions of rupees from high-ranking officers of the Sindh government to protect them from the NAB investigations.

Justice Muhammad Iqbal Kalhoro and Justice Shamsuddin Abbasi, while hearing the plea sought reply from the NAB prosecutor regarding the objection of the defence over the jurisdiction.

Advocate Hassan Sabir maintained that the case does not fall in the jurisdiction of the corruption watchdog. Police deal with cases of impersonation and they should be allowed to do so, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 13^th, 2021.