Defiance of court order: Contempt notice issued to KMC administrator for damaging phone lines

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) issued contempt notices to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) administrator and the Sindh Industrial Trading Estate’s chief executive for defying the court’s order to ensure no damage was caused to the underground telephone lines during development works in Clifton and SITE. Headed by Chief Justice Maqbool Baqar, the bench also instructed the KMC, Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) and others to refrain from carrying out any developmental work at the places where underground phone cables were laid, without intimating the Pakistan Telecommunication Limited (PTCL) authorities. PTCL had gone to court seeking directives for the respondents, KMC, KWSB, SSGC, and OGRA, to adopt preventive measures while digging the roads to ensure that underground phone cables were not damaged. According to Section 19-A of the Telegraph Act 1885, respondents are required to issue an intimation notice to PTCL before initiating any work at those places where phone cables are laid so that necessary measures may be taken to protect the phone cables, claimed the PTCL’s lawyer, Haider Waheed. The respondent entities, however, dug up the roads for various purposes that damaged the telephone cables, including optic cables, laid by PTCL throughout the province. This not only caused financial losses to the PTCL but also caused its customers to suffer, he added. The court was pleaded to direct them to strictly follow the procedure before initiating such works at the places where phone lines were laid. On the last hearing, the judges had issued contempt notices to the KMC administrator for failing to ensure compliance of the court’s directives and summoned him on March 30 to explain the reasons of defiance. On Wednesday, the court was informed that although notice was served to the respondent, Rauf Akhtar Farooqui, neither he nor his representative had appeared in court. Taking exception to such an attitude, the bench ordered its office to issue a fresh contempt notice to Farooqui to appear on May 29 and explain why he failed to comply with the court’s directions. Moreover, the judges issued contempt notice to the SITE chief executive to appear for the same date. Published in The Express Tribune, May 1st, 2014.