Park encroachment: Bailable warrants issued for city administrator and others

The officials had been told to appear in court Thursday but failed to do so.

KARACHI: Bailable warrants have been issued for the arrest of Karachi Administrator Syed Hashim Raza Zaidi, former administrator, Muhammad Hussain Syed and their subordinate officer by the Supreme Court of Pakistan for not appearing in court despite being asked to do so.

A three-member bench, comprising Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Amir Hani Muslim, has ordered their production in court today. The judges were hearing a plea seeking contempt proceedings against Zaidi, Muhammad Hussain and city government officer, Asim Khan.

Lawyer Syed Jawad Haider had taken the city municipal officers to court for allegedly committing contempt of the court’s order. He submitted that he had filed a petition with the Sindh High Court to order the local government authorities to remove illegal encroachment from the 711-square-yard land of an amenity plot, where Baloch Park was established in Ranchhor Lane in 2007.

He maintained that the high court had also stayed construction of Khursheed Begum IT Centre on the same plot, but later the matter was taken to the apex court.

On October 23, 2008, the SC bench disposed of the case when officials from the local government’s parks department assured that the illegal constructions would not be allowed to be raised on the park’s land. The unauthorised constructions, however, started re-emerging in January this year, he alleged.

At the previous hearing, the SC bench had issued notice to the administrator, former administrator and another officer to appear in court on Thursday but they failed to show up so the bench issued bailable warrants in sum of Rs50,000 each for their arrest.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 19^th, 2013.