KARACHI - Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan Justice Gulzar Ahmed Monday came down hard on the Sindh government for not paying attention to Karachi’s civic issues. 

“If you can’t clean a nullah, how can you run a province,” questioned Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed while presiding over a hearing of a case relating to the construction of a tower on Shahrah-e-Faisal. He spoke about the city’s main artery, Shahrah-e-Faisal, saying that it has never declined in width but has only grown. “The service roads on both sides have been encroached. Everyone is corrupt, even the Commissioner is admitting that it has been encroached,” observed the CJP. He added that all the plots mentioned in the case are amenity plots.

“There is a building control authority, (but you can) give (them) money and do whatever you like. There is no government in Sindh,” CJP stated. The court also asked the Advocate General Sindh what the provincial government will do to ensure these practice are kept in check.

“Advocate General Sindh you tell us, you know everything. How can anyone else run your government? Someone will have to stand up and stop this,” remarked the court.

Chief Justice said that a Parliamentary form of government is a strong one but reiterated that when such were the state of affairs that a provincial government cannot clean a nullah, how it will run an entire province.

“We gave the orders to clean the nullah over a year ago yet there seems to be a new excuse every day,” said the Chief Justice.

 

Justice Gulzar said Rs2.6 trillions were allocated for an education project that was started in 2014 and was finished in 2017. “This money could have been used to establish a world-class university,” he said.

The Chief Justice observed that Rs1.5 trillion have been set aside for reverse osmosis plants yet people in Tharparkar are dying of thirst.

 

“The Sindh government only has one plan: turn [the province] from bad to worse,” the Chief Justice said.

He said authorities should decide what to do about the city’s civic issues. “This is not how you run a government,” he said. “In fact, there seems to be no government [in Sindh],” he added.

 

The court said that when authorities pass budgets, they allocate funds for themselves, not for the welfare of the people. The court then adjourned the hearing of the case till June 16 due to the absence of Munir A Malik.

 

 

Railways minister’s resignation

 

Meanwhile, the echo of Deherki train accident was sounded in the Supreme Court, Karachi Registry, when Chief Justice noticed the deteriorating condition of the state entity.

 

Supreme Court Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed while hearing Karachi circular railway case in the SC Karachi registry on Monday expressed his exasperation over the indifference of railways authorities. He said a huge tragedy occurred in Deherki train accident but nothing happened.

 

The CJ said he was expecting that Minister for Railways Azam Swati while accepting responsibility would present his resignation in his press conference. But it seems neither he will resign nor will he do anything, the CJ remarked adding that what would happen to the people who were dying.

 

CJP Gulzar Ahmed said that the authorities had destroyed Railways department. He said railway travel was a poor man’s means of communication. He chided the secretary saying that the government should decide whether it wanted to run the Railways for people or for political purposes.

 

The chief justice said that political recruitments were made in the railways. He said all over the world the Railways provides modern facilities to its passengers but not here.