Karachi police has registered a case against officers of the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) for issuing permits for construction of Nasla Tower, Karachi that has made headlines.
According to police, the names of those responsible have been sought from the Sindh Building Control Authority and Sindh Muslim Cooperative Society.
SSP Investigation East also confirmed this. He said police had started an investigation in the case after the registration of the FIR. He said police teams had visited the offices of the SBCA and SCHS and asked for the names of the officers who approved the building plan.
On Monday, the Supreme Court had directed authorities to take action against the officials responsible for issuing construction permits for the illegal 15-storeyed Nasla Tower building.
Hearing the Nasla Tower case, a two-member bench – comprising Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Qazi Mohammad Amin – had ordered the anti-corruption department to register a case against those involved in approving the building plan, says a news report.
The court directed the police to register a separate case against the officials.
The DIG East has been directed to take immediate action against the officials who had approved the Nasla Tower building plan and present a report to the Supreme Court.
The apex court had also ordered seizure of the 780 square yards of the land Nasla Tower was constructed upon and directed the Sindh High Court’s (SHC) official assignee to take possession of the land and stop its sale.
Expressing his annoyance over the slow pace of demolition process, the chief justice asked, “Such a building is torn down within one hour in the world. What are you people doing?”
On this, Karachi Commissioner Iqbal Memon told the court that 400 labourers were working on the task, adding that five floors of the building had been demolished so far.
The bench had observed that the SBCA officials violated the law and each and every official involved was liable not only to face departmental inquiries, but also be booked under the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and Prevention of Corruption Act. The bench had ordered two separate first information reports (FIR) to be registered against the SBCA officials and other government officials concerned at the ACE and police station concerned, while directing the ACE and the DIG-East to file compliance reports in one week.