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Lease-hold rights CE urged to resolve retired govt servants problem

RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: The Anjuman-e Falah-o-Bahbood of P&T Colony at Gizri has appealed to the Chief Executive Gen Musharraf to direct the concerned authorities to resolve the problem of 500 families of the retired government servants who are waiting for lease-hold rights since long.

The Anjuman in its plea to the Chief Executive said that a suit pending in the Sindh High Court for the last eight years was preventing the grant of lease to the residents because the Postmaster General and PTCL authorities had not been able to produce to the said court of law any concrete and authenticated written evidence in support of their claim or entitlement over the said plot of land.

The residents maintained that in 1947-48 the then Post and Telegraph department acquired a plot of land measuring 50 acres from KMC but failed to make payment of agreed sale price to the KMC. The department not only unauthorisedly occupied the land but also unlawfully completed construction of various types of residential quarters without obtaining a proper 99-year lease for the said plot of land from the competent authority.

Reacting to the violation of KMC rules by the P&T Department, the KMC served legal notices for vacation of the land which were never replied. Ultimately, the KMC unanimously passed resolution according to which the KMC recovered possession of the said plot and subsequently granted lease-hold rights to the bonafide occupants.

The Anjuman further said that the KMC held another public meeting in the P&T Colony, Gizri, on July 15, 1991, and distributed lease-hold rights to 5/6 occupants of the said quarters in the presence of the then deputy mayor of the KMC and the Director of Land Department who also made an announcement that the KMC would soon grant and hand over lease-hold rights to all the remaining occupants including widows, sons and daughters of the deceased of these premises.

The Anjuman said that the Postmaster General and the PTCL authorities having had the knowledge of the KMC's intentions immediately approached the Sindh High Court and obtained stay order which halted the KMC's leasing process indefinitely.