SHC summons respondents

SHC summons official respondents in a petition questioning legality of commission formed for Tori and MS bunds.

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has summoned official respondents in a constitutional petition, questioning the legality of a notification under which a commission was formed to enquire the alleged breaches in the Tori and MS bunds.

Notices were issued Wednesday to respondents, including the Sindh irrigation secretary, for October 8. Another petition filed by Sindh Dost Ittehad on an identical issue was also fixed for hearing.

The bench was hearing a petition filed by former MNA Abdul Mujeeb Pirzada as litigation in the public interest. In his petition, Pirzada said that he was a representative of the people of NA-199 Sukkur where the controversial town of Ali Wahan was situated.

The petitioner also questions the legal basis for the notification issued by the Sindh government, constituting a two-member enquiry commission comprising retired SHC judges.

He said that the Federal Flood Commission had issued a warning ahead of the heavy rains in August and September 2010. The irrigation department, he said, has a contingency plan in which measures were suggested to secure the barrages of Sindh in general and the Sukkur Barrage in particular.

Pirzada said that under the contingency plan and according to various articles in the Bund Manual and the Barrage Manual, a breach can be made at the old head of the Nara River if the river’s water discharge reaches 1.2 million cusecs. “In a similar flood in 1976, a breach was made in the bund at Ali Wahan. This could have been done again [in 2010] to save seven million people from displacement and 2.5 million acres of land from destruction,” he said.

In his petition, he alleged that breaches were made to save the agricultural lands of federal ministers, senators and MPAs at the expense of the poor farmers of Sindh.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 7^th, 2010.