The Sindh High Court (SHC) has ordered the partial demolition of a press club in Kot Ghulam Muhammad town of Mirpurkhas district because it was constructed on a piece of road belonging to the Sindh highways department.
The order was given by the Hyderabad circuit bench on a petition filed by two local residents.
The petitioner, Shamshad Ali, maintained that he and the second petitioner bought two separate plots adjacent to each other and began construction in 2010. Sometime later, the building of the club was built and it blocked the entrance to their main gate and a shop.
They complained about the alleged squatting to the local authorities, but to no avail. In 2019, they filed a suit in the Anti-Encroachment Tribunal, which in its October 17, 2019 report, stated that part of the building of the club was constructed on highways land. The club maintained that the town municipal authority had rented out the place to the club. Howeverm the tribunal found that the TMA had illegally handed over the property to the club. Nevertheless, the tribunal did not order the removal of the encroachment.
The additional advocate general Sindh, in his report, stated that the land in question was the property of the highways department and that it fell under encroachment. According to the department, the 28-foot long stretch of road had been encroached upon by the club. "It is well settled that conversion of any amenity plot into any other purpose is illegal and encroachment which can't be allowed in any circumstances," the bench noted. The SHC gave references of four separate cases to corroborate its observation.
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The town committee told the court that till 2000, the 47sq-yd plot was used for collecting Octroi Tax. On March 3, 2004, the council passed a resolution allotting the said land to the club. The bench stated that the public property cannot be used for any purpose other than for which it was reserved. "The right of any citizen to have free access to the public property or amenity cannot be taken away by changing the status of such a property to commercial or residential. The same cannot even be leased to a third party," the court observed.
"Even the government or a municipal authority have no right to change the use of amenity or public property and that they are bound to keep such property free from encroachment," the bench noted.
They added that a press club cannot be deemed to be an amenity or public property. It is rather used as a platform by politicians, unions, workers and other individuals and entities to raise their voice. "If it is assumed, for the sake of argument, that the club is a public property, even in that case it cannnot be allowed to use the land reserved for the highway."
The order reads that the permission given for establishing the club was void ab initio. The bench ordered the deputy commissioner Mirpurkhas to demolish the encroachment within two months.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 21st, 2021.
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