The Sindh High Court has extended its stay order baring the Clifton Cantonment Board (CCB) from finalising the proceedings of auctioning the rights to collect parking fee at different parking sites in Clifton area.
A division bench, headed by Justice Hassan Azhar Rizvi, was hearing two identical petitions questioning the cantonment board’s powers to levy the parking fee for placing it before another the bench for adjudication.
The bench observed that the petitions involving the issue of auctioning the parking sites had already been decided by SHC’s Justice Sajjad Ali Shah. Therefore, it directed its office to place the matter before the chief justice for obtaining appropriate orders for listing it for hearing in court of Justice Sajjad Ali Shah.
The bench adjourned the matter to a date to be fixed by court office while extending stay order on auctioning parking sites.
The petitioners, Muhammad Sajjad Haider and Farigh Nadeem, submitted that the cantonment board had on October 30 got published public notice to auction different parking sites in the Block 8 and 9 of Clifton to the private contractors for recovery of parking fee.
The contractor would charge Rs 40 each on parking of bus/mazda, Rs 20 on car/pick-up and Rs 10 on motorcycle. It was stated that the cantonment board had no powers to levy parking fee under the Cantonments Act 1924 despite the fact that they have advertised the auction rights of the parking fee charges through the newspapers. The petitioners said the municipal authority have no powers under any law to levy such fee, which has already been declared as illegal, null and void by the Lahore High Court and SHC in its judgments.
The court was pleaded to declare the auction of the parking fee rights by the CBC as illegal, unlawful and without having lawful authority.
