Defence Regency: Owners, builders restrained from construction on land

SHC Nazir ordered to inspect project and submit report.

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has restrained the owners and builders of Defence Regency, also known as Defence View Project, from any “construction on mandatory open space and any land reserved for road expansion or widening by the town planning authorities.”

The order was passed on Wednesday on a constitutional petition filed by the executive director of Printek (Private) Limited against Shahid Nabi Malik, the proprietor of City Developers (Pvt) Limited, the Sindh secretary of housing and town planning, the director-general of the Sindh Building Control Authority, the director for buildings in Jamshed Town and the commissioner of Karachi.

The petitioner maintained that he has an office facing the residential-cum-commercial project. The 17-storey structure has 270 apartments and 37 shops. A number of violations and irregularities were committed during all the stages of construction but the building control authorities remained unmoved thus prompting the petitioner to go to court, his lawyer submitted.

The petition is being heard by Justices Maqbool Baqar and Nisar Muhammad Shaikh.

It was also submitted that now the owner and builder is constructing and covering the mandatory open space reserved for an arcade besides the space left for widening or the expansion of the road by the city government or town planners.

The alleged illegalities and violations are bound to affect the ecology and environment of the entire area as the infrastructure is not capable of bearing the impact of such a colossal burden, the petitioner maintained.

After hearing the lawyer, the court appointed the Nazir to inspect and submit a report on the present status of the project and the level of construction.

The bench adjourned the proceedings to an unspecified date.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 24^th, 2012.