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December 30, 2020
KARACHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday observed that gangs and land grabbing mafias were operating in the city with the support of government officials besides the Sindh Building Control Authority’s unauthorized permission for scores of high-rise buildings that will subsequently turn the city into a graveyard.
Hearing the petitions against illegal encroachments on public parks and amenity lands in Karachi, the SC’s three-member bench, headed by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, directed the chief minster Sindh to submit a report about the steps being taken for remedying the state of affairs in Karachi.
At the outset of the proceedings, the chief justice inquired from the additional advocate general about the compliance of SC directions given to the CM Sindh to correct the state of affairs of Karachi as there was a total collapse of civic agencies in Karachi. The additional advocate general, Sindh, submitted that secretaries of concerned departments have filed their respective reports. At that, the court took an exception over non-filing of comments by the CM and directed the law officer to ask the CM to appear before the court and explain what action has been taken to comply with the orders of the court. The bench observed that the CM was specifically ordered to take proper action for improving Karachi after observing that none of the civic agencies seem to be working or even interested in working. They observed that additional advocate general was unable to reply to the court queries about compliance of its May 9, 2019 order.