Govt duty- bound to provide destitute with shelter: SC

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday observed the government was duty-bound to provide the poor and destitute with shelter, and ordered the enforcement of the constitutional obligation pertaining to life, liberty and the dignity of man. It said it would pass an appropriate order if the government failed to provide shelter to low-income and destitute people in the country.
A two-member bench of the apex court comprising Justice Dost Muhammad Khan and Justice Qazi Faiz Isa resumed the hearing in identical petitions, filed against the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and police action in the Katchi Abadis of Sector I-11 in the federal capital.
“It is the responsibility of the state to ensure the enforcement of constitutional obligation by providing proper shelter to low-income families living in the slums across the country,” Justice Dost Muhammad Khan observed during the course of the hearing. He observed that the court would ensure the constitutional obligation mentioned in articles 9, 14, 25 and 38 of the Constitution and if the government failed to ensure it, it would pass an appropriate order.
The court in its order ruled that for the last four months since August, it issued various directives to the government were given from the government side regarding any mechanism to be evolved for the people living in slum areas of the country.
It further observed in its order that learned Additional Attorney General Aamir Rehman stated that a meeting on the matter concerned held the other day under the chairmanship of Secretary Ministry of Housing and attended by four provincial secretaries.
The court, however, noted that nothing and meaningful was brought on the record about making legislation in order to provide permanent residents to the low-income citizens.
It was further ruled in the order that the concerned committee is required to conduct a survey throughout Pakistan about slums in urban and rural areas where flood caused loss of lives and destroyed properties and crops.
The court observed that the mushroom growth of housing schemes without any proper planning wherein green belts were utilised for constructing houses as a great set back to the agriculture sector on which mostly the country relies. Therefore, the court ruled that the concerned committee should be tasked to evolve a framework for a unified law and to devise a policy for poor people to provide plots based on a model design.
The court summoned in-person, Attorney General for Pakistan along with secretary of Ministry of Housing, chairman Capital Development Authority (CDA), four provincial secretaries of the concerned Ministry as well as secretary Finance Division on the next date of hearing. The court ruled that these officials are required to state as to how much they could contribute to provide shelter free of cost to the destitute and low-caste people living across the country.
The court further directed that the concerned officials should also ensure submitting of a comprehensive report on guidelines so that it could pass an appropriate order in the matter.
Adjourning the case until first week of January, 2016, Justice Dost Muhammad Khan observed that if the concerned ministers work sincerely on the issue, they could mobilise the international donors during their foreign tours for generating funds for the relocation of people living in slums across the country.
The international donors if convinced can contribute billion of dollars for the purpose”, he remarked.Earlier, during the course of hearing, Justice Dost Muhammad Khan observed that Katchi Abadi in I-11, earlier razed by the CDA, 20 percent dwellers there were labouring in the nearby fruits markets or in some other weekly bazaars while the rest of 80 percent people of the slums either male or female are working at the houses of the officials of CDA and police whose spouses are not accustomed to work.
Abid Hassan Manto, the petitioner, informed the court that recently during the Local Body’s election held in the federal capital, people, displaced from I-11 came and participated in the elections, casting their votes. He further said that some two to three dwellers got elected as counselors as well.