KARACHI: About a week after the federal government moved to the Supreme Court in search of funds deposited by Bahria Town Limited for the resolution of cases on its project in Karachi, the Sindh government also filed an application on Wednesday in the superior court with an identical request.
Sindh's Advocate General, Salman Talibuddin, filed a three-page request in the Karachi record of the Supreme Court and argued that on his order of March 21, the higher court had ordered the city of Bahria to make the payment initial to the Sindh government regarding the rights it will acquire from the provincial government for 16,896 acres of land in Karachi.
The provincial law officer also said that the federal government faced a severe fiscal crisis due to the deficit in federal tax collection in fiscal year 2018-19.
Therefore, the provincial government, against the budget estimate of Rs605.6 billion, had only received Rs439 billion before June 30, reflecting a deficit of Rs112 billion and a deficit of Rs74.99bn against Revised estimates of Rs508bn against the federal revenue allocation of the divisible pool, he added.
Similarly, the provincial government had only received Rs9.9bn from the federal government against the allocated amount of Rs14.266bn under the 2018-19 Public Sector Development Program, the AG argued and argued that this deficit in provincial revenues had put endangered development projects that had already been initiated and those that were in various stages of preparation.
Therefore, said the provincial law officer, the Supreme Court must order that the amount of the advance already deposited by the city of Bahria, in the account established by the Supreme Court, be transferred to the provincial account of the Sindh government, so as to all future payments in this regard.
In addition, he stated that the Sindh government promised that all the money received from the city of Bahria in the light of the Supreme Court order, would only be used by the provincial government for its development projects in a transparent manner under the supervision of a committee dedicated to the Prime Minister.
On March 21, a three-judge SC bank accepted the offer of Rs460bn from the city of Bahria to implement the court ruling of May 4, 2018, which held that the concession of land to the Malir Development Authority (MDA ) by the Sindh government, its The exchange with the developer's private land and everything that was done under the provisions of the Government Land Colonization Act of 1912, by the provincial government were illegal and had no existence legal.
The land was granted to launch an incremental housing plan, but the MDA exchanged it with the land of the city of Bahria to launch its own plan, the bank in its verdict had repented.
On August 22, Attorney General Anwar Mansoor had submitted a request stating that the Supreme Court had granted a period of seven years, from September 1, 2019 until August 31, 2026, for the payment of the total amount of the agreement to the Supreme Court. Referring to Article 78 of the Constitution, the federal law officer said that the amount to be recovered from Bahria Town Limited must be credited to the public account of the federation.
Published on Dawn, August 29, 2019
Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1502304/sindh-govt-moves-sc-to-gain-funds-being-deposited-by-bahria-town
