Staff Reporter The Sindh High Court expressed its anger at the Cantonment Board Clifton over its failure to demolish an illegal 11-storey building in Delhi Colony. It heard on Thursday a petition claiming that the court had ordered the building’s demolition but no step has been taken by the authorities. Eleven-storey buildings are now being constructed in Delhi Colony and Punjab Colony, remarked Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi. “The buildings look like pigeonholes.” The court asked who approved the building plan. The bench expressed its anger at the CBC for turning a blind eye towards such constructions. “What were you doing when the road was made?” The CBC lawyer said that the Sindh government is responsible for the building construction. The building falls within in limits of a katchi abadi, he added. No one will ever work if you keep blaming each other, remarked the judge. CBC has been given till March 7 to submit its reply in the case. Sindh Minister for Information Nasir Hussain Shah had assured the Supreme Court that it would implement its directives to tear down illegal buildings in the metropolis. Commenting on the verdict of the top court while talking to the media, Shah said that the provincial government “fully backed the vision of the chief justice to transform Karachi for the better”. “We also have sympathies for the people residing in the buildings [built illegally]. That is why we need time. There is already a top court order regarding the protection of people residing in illegally constructed buildings,” Shah told reporters. “We will first target illegal buildings that are non-residential. The Supreme Court order on encroachments will make things easier for the government. Previously, stay orders given by the court had sometimes acted as an obstacle to our work,” the minister further said. Shah maintained that the operation against encroachments in the port city was continuing, and that the Sindh Building Control Authority had set up a special cell for complaints related to the matter. “There are more than 900 illegal encroachments in the city,” he told the media. Besides briefing reporters on the progress of the anti-encroachment drive, the Sindh information minister also answered questions about other issues related to governance in the province, including corruption and development in Karachi.
