DAWN - Cowasjee Corner; 21 March, 1999

Monumental proof



By Ardeshir Cowasjee ONE is frequently accosted by assorted namby-pambys who, though they may be hefty hulks, are afraid of their own shadows. After looking over their left shoulder, then their right, they ask "Mulk ko kia horaha hai?" What is to be done? No investment, no business, corruption everywhere. What will become of Karachi? How will we live here? What will become of us all?

They are told that there are only two things they can do: stand up and fight the corruption and evil; or moan and groan, wallow in pity for their plight and that of the country, and then die of frustration. The usual answer is that they neither have the strength nor the ability to stand up and be counted. That being the case, the next suggestion is that they remain safely in the background and discreetly give of their time or money to further the fight for the betterment of Karachi's environment by supporting some non-profit organization. At this stage they sidle away, never to be heard from again.

The authorities concerned with the planning and development of the city, and with the control of buildings - the KDA, the KBCA, the KMC, and all the Cantonment Boards - are riddled through and through with corrupt officers and men. More often than not, the concerned departments of the Government of Sindh, Housing & Town Planning and Local Bodies which control these authorities, are headed by corrupt ministers and secretaries.

The corrupt have no fear, for they know that even if they are entrapped and an enquiry held and they are found to be guilty and suspended, they will soon walk back, or walk into an even better job. It is indeed difficult to fight and win.

Case in point : To appease public clamour, the corrupt and now absconding former PPP Chief Minister of Sindh, Abdullah Shah, suspended 29 officers of the Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA) and appointed the then Secretary of Local Government, Nur Ahmad Shah, to hold an enquiry into their conduct.

Nur Ahmad 's integrity is beyond question. By the time he had completed his enquiry, the PPP government and Abdullah Shah had been shot out. His report was submitted to Mumtaz Bhutto's caretaker government. Fourteen were acquitted for want of sufficient evidence and fifteen dealt with thus:

"Highrises are not raised overnight in a manner which would escape the notice of the accused officials, nor can they remain concealed. Their mushroom and ill-planned growth bears testimony to the KBCA's impotence. The proof of the inefficiency and ineptitude and dereliction of duty of the officials of the KBCA is literally monumental. The accused officials are squarely responsible and it is due to either their criminal negligence and their dereliction in the performance of their duties, or to their complicity in the matters involved. In either case, they are liable for punishment under the E&D Rules. Keeping in view the gravity of the menace and its ramifications, determined and deterrent action is the only answer. I would therefore suggest the imposition of a major penalty on the following accused officials : Akhtar Iqbal Usmani, Zaidiul Wasti, Rauf Akhtar Farooqui, Iqbal Aziz, Kazi Mumtaz Iqbal, Arshad Jamal, Sultan Mohammed Zuberi, Mohammed Bux Qasmi, Anwar Kamal Kazmi, Khwaja Badi-uz-Zaman, Munawar Azam, Mohammed Ali Qaimkhani, Iqbal-ur-Rahman, Abdul Waheed, Abdul Sattar Pasha."

Come the equally corrupt PML/MQM government and on May 12 1997, fourteen of the guilty fifteen, the exception being Rauf Akhtar Farooqui, were reinstated in their original positions.

Come Governor's rule and (don't fall off your chairs), Secretary of Housing and Town Planning Faisal Saud, backed by Chief Secretary Salik Nazir, recommended that Farooqui be elevated and appointed as Director General of the Malir Development Authority. This has been done.

But all is not lost. The corrupt reinstated, possibly now more corrupt than ever, are once again being investigated. There is some hope that the people may yet gain.

Now to a manifested gain. Good Chief Justice of Sindh Kamal Mansoor Alam, realizing the lack of confidence in the courts and the frustration of the citizens of this city who have filed petitions against illegal constructions, the desecration of parks and open spaces, has appointed a 'Green Bench' comprising two fearless judges, Justices Rana Baghwandas and Sabihuddin Ahmad. He has ordered it to sit on one day each week to hear cases involving the environment. This bench has successfully and expeditiously dispensed justice. But the builders mafia is very powerful, and being exceedingly wealthy have organized a band of lawyers, all highly crafty at devising devious means. Their aim is to have their cases transferred away from the 'Green Bench' by appointing amongst their panel a man who has been associated with one of the two 'Green' judges, thus hoping to force him to declare 'Not before me.'

This aspect has now been dealt with by the Bench by its order of March 12 1999 (CP-103/99), the relevant portion of which reads: "Mr Naimur Rahman [the citizens/petitioners' counsel] has drawn our attention to the following observations of the Honourable Supreme Court in the case of Federation of Pakistan-vs-Muhammad Akram Shaikh (PLD 1989 SC 689) which reads as under : 'It may however, be mentioned that there can be exceptions to this practice. A judge can always distinguish cases where any of the parties is resorting to a device, with an ulterior motive, so as to prevent him from sitting on the Bench dealing with a particular case, for example by engaging a counsel who is barred from appearing before him. He may not disqualify himself in such cases'."

In CP 103/99, the two 'Green' judges found that "Mr Zia Makhdoom appears to have been brought for the purpose of getting this case transferred to another Bench," and decided to hear the petition.

In another case, the 'Green Bench' has unequivocally ordered the complete demolition of an unauthorised structure being erected on Plot GRE 395/3 in Garden East. For four years, the citizens of the area actively and volubly protested against the construction of a basement-plus-ground-plus-five storeys building covering the entire plot, quite contrary to the approved plan permitting only the construction of ground-plus-one covering only one-third of the plot. In 1995, in collusion with some corrupt KBCA officials, the owners/builders filed a cover-up suit in the lower courts, and obtained a status quo order under cover of which they proceeded to excavate and construct the illegal basement and additional floors.

The citizens protested relentlessly and at the end of the year the government was forced to seal the project. The owners/builders then went to the High Court, filed two frivolous suits, again obtaining status quo orders restraining the KBCA from taking any action against them, and again resumed construction.

In mid-1997, the citizens and the NGO, SHEHRI, went to court (CP-1297/97), represented by Barrister Mohammed Gilbert Naim-ur-Rahman, and in December the status quo order was vacated. Finally, this month, the Green Bench has ordered demolition and on March 15, the KBCA, unable to wriggle out of this one, began demolishing the offending structure. But, for reasons which the KBCA is unable to explain, the demolition process was suspended after two days. The harassed citizens are not letting go, they are pressing on and will probably have to file contempt proceedings.

Quite a few buildings, subjects of on-going litigation in the courts, are likely to be demolished on court orders. However, there are builders who hastily construct and sell to an unsuspecting naive public uncompleted shops, offices, apartments, etc without informing them that there are cases pending in the courts and without showing them the interim court orders in the field. Two such cases are Glass Towers near the Clifton Bridge and The Plaza at the Do Talwar Clifton roundabout. The committee appointed to oversee the functioning of the KBCA has moved to make it obligatory upon the Authority to inform the public of the status of litigation in such cases.

Governor Moinuddin Haider has done much to help better the environment of Karachi. He has renotified the Oversee Committee of the KBCA, giving it more teeth. He has reconstituted the dormant governing body of the KDA making it people-representative, appointing thereon a civil servant, a truly civil man in the true sense of the word, Tasneem Ahmad Siddiqui, who chose to move away from the post of Chef Secretary of Sindh and remain in charge of the 'kachchi abadis' where he can and is doing good for the poor.