SHC orders removal of encroachments in Shah Latif Town

The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday directed the Sindh government, Malir Development Authority (MDA) to remove encroachments from the Shah Latif town area and submit a compliance report.

Hearing a petition against encroachments in Shah Latif Town Sector 18, a division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Nadeem Akhtar observed that court orders with regard to removal of encroachments has not been complied with.

A focal person to the chief secretary submitted that he had chaired a meeting with regard to removal of encroachments and sought one-month time to implement the decisions taken in the meeting.

The high court directed the provincial government and MDA to submit a compliance report with regard to removal of encroachments within three weeks. The petitioner, Usman, and others had submitted that they were allotted plots in Shah Latif Town Sector 18 but they had been illegally occupied by land grabbers. They submitted that the MDA had neither removed the encroachments from the petitioners’ plots nor issued them alternative plots in place of the occupied land.

Bahadurabad police station

The SHC directed a provincial law officer to file a report with regard to the shifting of the Bahadurabad police station from an amenity park and leased properties owned by private owners in the PECHS area.

The direction came while hearing a petition filed by private owners who had moved the court against the ‘encroachment’ on their leased property and amenity park. The petitioners had submitted that their plots which include from 115-A to 115-F had been occupied till the children’s park by way of an illegal resolution of then union council of Gulshan-e-Iqbal Town.

They said that later the police station was set up on their land. They said they had time and again complained to the authorities concerned, but all efforts were in vain. A counsel for the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation had submitted that the impugned piece of land had been wrongly leased out to the petitioners who claimed title to the land and it was part of a park.

He said the land was not allotted to the Sindh police for setting up the police station. The high court had earlier directed the chief secretary and the secretary of the local government to convene a meeting for resolving the dispute of shifting the Bahadurabad police station from the leased properties owned by the petitioners to any other appropriate place and submit minutes of the meeting.