Crackdown: SHC tells LG dept to stick to the law

Petitioners told judges they were running wedding lawns in North Karachi & Korangi on a 10-year lease executed in 2009

KARACHI:

As the campaign against illegal wedding halls gains momentum, the Sindh High Court directed the local government secretary and the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) chief to act according to the law while handling the case of two marriage lawns.

The petitioners, Asad Javeed and Syed Muhammad Zubair, told the judges that they were running wedding lawns in North Karachi and Korangi on a 10-year lease executed in 2009. They also claimed to possess no-objection certificates to establish such lawns.

They said while they were regularly paying monthly charges to the district authorities, the KMC and local government staff visited their lawns in March to demanded money, threatening to demolish the lawns when they refused to pay up.

They feared that, under the garb of the crackdown on lawns built on amenity plots, the respondents may demolish their lawns. They pleaded the court restrain them from such action.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 21^st, 2015.