SC lashes out at LDA over high-rises

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court said on Thursday it wondered why illegally built high-rise buildings in Lahore escaped the attention of the Lahore Development Authority because these were not completed overnight but in stages and ordered strict action against civic agency’s delinquent officers.

“Why the LDA was in a deep slumber when these high-rise buildings were being constructed without removing objections or approving building plans,” asked Justice Javed Iqbal, head of a three-judge bench hearing the matter on a petition filed by Farooq Hameed, a citizen of Lahore.

The bench includes Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed and Justice Mohammad Sair Ali.

Farooq Hameed sought court’s direction for a halt to the illegal construction of 18-floor ‘Boulevard Heights’ on the Main Gulberg Boulevard which, he said, had structurally damaged his bungalow adjacent to the apartment block.

After hearing Advocate Aitzaz Ahsan, counsel for the Association of Builders and Developers (ABD) which represents about 1,000 builders in Lahore, the bench allowed the association to be impleaded as a necessary party with a direction to decide the matter on merit, along with other petitions.

Expressing dismay over the sluggish attitude of LDA officials towards mushroom growth of illegal buildings, the bench said that everything had been left for the Supreme Court to decide.

It ordered both disciplinary and criminal cases against LDA officers creating hurdles. In its May 11, 2007, order, the Supreme Court had expressed surprise over the permission granted by the LDA and other government agencies for construction of high-rise buildings in Lahore without following rules and regulations.

The court had constituted a commission headed by Justice Riaz Kiyani to conduct a detailed survey of all buildings in the city.

According to the commission’s report, most of the 417 buildings it had examined were found to be constructed in contravention of building rules and approval of maps.

In the light of the report, the LDA had on Dec 26 last year issued notices to 39 owners and occupants asking them to vacate the buildings. It later launched a massive demolition drive against illegally constructed multi-storey buildings.

On Thursday, Aitzaz Ahsan argued that findings of the commission were meant for assisting the Supreme Court in formulating some guidelines for high-rise buildings in future and not for carrying out the demolition drive.

The LDA, he said, was destroying buildings by construing it to be an order of the court although the court had not passed such directions.