- Over 240,000 bogus entries identified in Sindh from 1985 to date, as per a report submitted to court
- CJP remarks that “cases of forged documents are being filed in high courts even today”
- Justice Sajjad Ali Shah observes numerous discrepancies in the land records in Thatta
KARACHI: All illegal occupation of lands across Sindh owned by the government, including those in Karachi, need to be done away with, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday, in addition to directing authorities to resume green belts in the city.
In a hearing at the SC’s Karachi Registry of a case pertaining to the computerisation of land records, a three-member bench headed by the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) Justice Gulzar Ahmed issued the directives.
Qazi Shahid Pervaiz, a senior member of the Sindh Board of Revenue, presented a report to the court, wherein he acknowledged that the government-owned lands in the province had been illegally occupied, with more than 240,000 bogus entries identified in the province from 1985 to date.
Over 1,100 of these entries were pending a judicial review while more than 1,000 fake ones had already been removed, according to the report submitted by Pervaiz. It added that 70 million documents have been computerised across Sindh, to which the chief justice remarked that “cases of forged documents are being filed in high courts even today”.
“Has any government land been spared in the province,” Justice Ahmed inquired, while Justice Sajjad Ali Shah observed that the land records in Thatta contained numerous discrepancies. “Everyone has built villages of their own,” he noted.
On the other hand, the court also ordered the removal of encroachments from playgrounds and parks, ending the illegal occupation of lands belonging to the forest and irrigation department, and replanting of trees there.
