The Nasla Tower saga has once again highlighted the mushrooming of illegal construction and housing societies in the country.

The 15-storey Nasla Tower building, once advertised as a dream-come-true housing project, lies deserted, awaiting demolition.

On June 16, the Supreme Court of Pakistan had ordered the demolition of the building that had formerly housed 39 families.

“As of now, only the residents seem to be at the receiving end,” says Wali, a former resident of the building.

On October 16, when the district administration severed all utility connections, Wali had moved to a three-room portion in the Pakistan Employees Co-Operative Housing Society (PECHS).

On June 16, the apex court had ordered the Karachi commissioner to demolish the building as a part of encroached on a service road. On Thursday, the process was under way to hire a local demolition company, which works in collaboration with a UAE-based company, for demolition through a controlled explosion.

The company will carry out a 15 to 20-day physical assessment. It has obtained the structural design and layout plan of the building from the office of the deputy commissioner (East).

Nasla Tower is located on plot number A-193.

“This is the first case of its kind. A large already-occupied building is being demolished,” says Advocate Zubair Abro, who has expertise in land-related matters.

The SC has also ordered the builders to refund the registered buyers of the residential and commercial units within three months. However, this part of the order has not been implemented so far.

On September 22, a three-judge SC bench had dismissed the review petition against the earlier order for the demolition of the building. The top court directed the Karachi commissioner to implement its June 16 orders. Following the verdict, the Ferozabad assistant commissioner served the residents with an eviction notice that was also published in newspapers.

On October 25, the SC had directed the Karachi commissioner to demolish Nasla Tower within a week through a controlled blast. The authorities sprang into action right away the same day. The Ferozabad assistant commissioner directed the K-Electric, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board and the Sui Southern Gas Company Limited to discontinue their services to Nasla Tower. It was then that the residents realised that they will have to leave the building for good.

On December 27, 1957, the then chief commissioner of Karachi had allotted 20-feet-wide strips of land on both sides along the main Karachi-Malir Road (now Shahrah-i-Faisal) to the Sindhi Muslim Cooperative Housing Society (SMCHS).

According to the top court’s June order, the road was proposed to be 280-feet-wide in 1950, but after the allotment (of the 20-feet-wide strips on both sides), it was reduced to 240 feet. The additional area is claimed to have been allotted by the SMCHS to the then plot owner of plot number A-193. The area of the plot thus increased from 780 square yards to 1,044 square yards. “It is significant to note,” reads the SC order, “that this additional 264 square yards was not incorporated either in the original lease (as amended) or in any subsequent lease deed.”

By February 19, 2010, the society had acceded to transferring another 77 square yards to the Nasla Tower’s plot owner, making the plot’s total area 1,121 square yards. The additional transfer also lacked a lease deed. The SC has declared the owner’s occupation of the 341 square yards illegal.

The June 16 SC order mentions that a service road has been encroached upon. “In the opinion of this office, the available record suggests that the area of Plot No. A-193 is 780 square yards, and all excess area measuring 341 square yards occupied by the Nasla Tower building is encroached,” the SC shared an excerpt from the city commissioner’s report. The then chief commissioner’s 1957 notification of the allotment of the alignment land also makes no mention of any direction to allot the strip of land to any of the plot holders.

Despite these irregularities, the owner had earlier managed to get no-objection certificates (NOCs) from various municipal agencies under administrations led by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). “Leaders of all these political parties held press conferences in favour of the builder and residents after the SC’s demolition order. However, none stood by them when the Ferozabad AC issued eviction notices,” says Muhammad Ali, the Nasla Tower management committee chairman.

Despite the irregularities, the owner managed to get no-objection certificates (NOCs) from various municipal agencies under the watch of administrations led by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

The JI had led the local government in January 2006. According to the SC order, the then City District Government Karachi (CDGK) allowed the conversion of all the residential plots on Shahrah-i-Faisal to commercial status. For the Nasla Tower plot, then measuring 1,044 square yards, a public notice for change in land use from residential to commercial was issued in English and Urdu newspapers on March 31, 2005. With only one objection by an NGO, Shehri, the then nazim issued an NOC on March 13, 2007.

On September 2007, when Syed Mustafa Kamal of the MQM was the city’s mayor, the Master Plan Department formally approved the plot’s conversion from residential to commercial status.

The SC order clearly mentions that the letters and certificates issued by the society stating that the area of the plot has increased from 780 square yards to 1,044 square yards are of “no legal consequence in terms of conferring title or lease-hold rights on the original allottees or the subsequent purchasers of the lease-hold rights”.

By February 19, 2010, the SMCHS had agreed to grant an additional 77 square yards to the building’s owner, making the total area of the plot 1,121 square yards. In June 2010, the society wrote to the Master Plan Department that according to its books, plot number A-193 is now 1,121 square yards and has commercial status.

The Sindh Building Control Authority’s (SBCA) Master Plan Department issued a report on the change of land use of plot number A-193 a little over nine years later on June 25, 2019. The report endorsed the addition of 77 square yards, making the total area of the plot 1,121 square yards.

Under the PPP government, the then Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA) approved the architectural concept plan and an NOC was issued for the sale and marketing of flats and showrooms for the project Nasla Tower. The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation’s land department issued an NOC for the proposed building plan on the plot measuring 1121.01 square yards. On June 24, 2013, the SBCA issued a structural plan NOC for the project on the plot.

The SBCA also approved the basement, ground (showrooms), first to fourth floor parking, fifth to 14th floor flats, and 15th floor flats and recreation-only plans of the Nasla Tower. On February 21, 2014, the SBCA issued a plinth verification certificate. On May 18, 2015, on the basis of only an initial environmental examination (IEE) and not an environmental impact assessment (EIA), the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) accorded its approval to the project. The SEPA Act 2014 IEE and EIA Regulations clearly mention that there has to be an EIA for a project that is ground-plus-15.

Talking to The News on Sunday (TNS), the Ferozabad AC confirmed that the builder allowed possession of the building without obtaining completion certificate from the SBCA.

Advocate Zubair Abro says that the Building Control Authority should have stopped the possession process as it hadn’t issued the completion certificate. He also points out that a Board of Revenue notification bars the sub-registrar from allowing a sale deed or sublease without a completion certificate.

The process highlights how irregularities were given legal cover on part of the SBCA and the Board of Revenue (BoR). The residents now have to pay the price.

“Given so many government NOCs, the residents had no grounds for distrusting the project. There were 44 apartments in the building in which 39 families were living. The rest were owned by overseas Pakistanis. After the utility connections were discontinued, the residents had no option but to vacate the building. As per their settlement with the builder regarding repayments, the Association of Builders and Developers of Pakistan (ABAD) chairman has verbally assured them of refund within a year, but nothing has been agreed upon on paper as yet,” Muhammad Ali said.

“We have complied with the court orders and vacated the building,” said one of the residents, Imtiaz, who has moved to a two-bedroom apartment on Shaheed-i-Millat Road along with his two daughters and wife. “But we still don’t know, who will pay our money or when it will be paid” he says.

Five years ago when he had moved into the three-room apartment at Nasla Tower after paying Rs 24 million. “Today, the market value of the apartment is not less than Rs 40 million,” he says.

“If we are paid only the original amount and not the current market value, we won’t be able to buy a decent apartment in the city,” he says.

Wali says that they are being punished for trusting the NOCs and approvals issued by government agencies. “It has cost me Rs 1 million to move to a portion in PECHS. Even if we are paid the cost of the apartment, who will pay them the rent we are paying in the meanwhile. Who will be responsible for the mental distress all of us have suffered?” he asked.

Once the building is demolished, who own the plot considering the builder has already subleased all the apartments. According to Abro, the sublease gives the undivided share of the plot. If the residents accept the cost of the flat from the builder, they will have to surrender their sublease or sale deed. If they retain it, they will remain owners of the plot and get their share.

In whatever way the future unfolds, it will set a precedent for builders, building control and other government authorities and general buyers.

There are as many as 35 other plots, on which high-rise buildings exist on the main Shahrah-i-Faisal that were allotted additional land by the SMCHS. SMCHS secretary Shuaib Alam believes that legal standing of all those plots is in jeopardy now. “Will the SC order demolition of all buildings on those plots?” he wonders.

The writer is a reporter at The News in Karachi.