Alleged encroachment: SHC restrains seminary from constructing mosque on KU land

Bench directs Gulistan-e-Jauhar SHO to take action if approached by KU management.

KARACHI:

The Sindh High Court (SHC) restrained the administrator of a seminary from raising construction over a piece of 3,000-square-yard land located on the University of Karachi's (KU) premises.

Headed by Justice Munib Akhtar, the bench further instructed the Gulistan-e-Jauhar SHO to take action, if approached by the varsity's management, in this regard. The management had approached the high court against, what it called, the illegal encroachment upon its land and constructions on it. In the lawsuit, the plaintiff had named Mufti Iqbal Naqshbandi, the administrator of the Jamia Fareedia Moin-ul-Quran, director-general of the Karachi Development Authority and Gulistan-e-Jauhar SHO as defendants.

Asif Mukhtar, the KU legal director, had sought an injunction against the seminary's administrator, his agents and employees, restraining them from interfering in the peaceful and undisputed possession of the suit property measuring 3,000 square yards, situated between the pillar No. UK-16 and UK-17 on the varsity's premises.

The plaintiff alleged that the seminary's management had unlawfully taken over the land which was allotted to the university back in 1954. However, the seminary management, in connivance with the Karachi Development Authority's officials, has attempted to usurp the same.

The plaintiff asked the court to declare that the KDA has no authority to allot, sell or dispose of the varsity's land to the seminary management since it has been in possession of KU for the last several decades.

The legal director informed the bench that first Mufti Iqbal Naqshbandi got the allotment to the land unlawfully and then started illegal constructions of a mosque.

The court was also pleaded to order removal of the construction material from the site and permanently restrain the defendants from raising any type of construction. The plaintiff also complained that a complaint was filed with the Gulistan-e-Jauhar police for taking legal action against the private defendant, but they refused to entertain the same.

Justice Munib Akhtar, after preliminary hearing, issued notices to the defendant seminary's administrator, KDA director-general and Gulistan-e-Jauhar SHO for March 11 to file their replies. The bench also restrained the seminary administrator from raising any sort of constructions on the land in question till the next date of hearing.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 1^st, 2014.