Illegal constructions in Walled City: LHC issues notices to CDGL, LDA

The Lahore High Court here on Thursday issued notice to City District Government Lahore (CDGL), Lahore Development Authority (LDA) on a petition challenging illegal constructions in Walled City. The court also summoned record of developers continuously doing illegal constructions in the Walled City. Legal Advisor of Walled City Authority Khuram Chugtaee, appeared in the court and said that the authority was fully authorised to take action against developers.
He said the authority was responsible to preserve Walled City, a national heritage, and it had lodged formal FIRs against 136 developers over doing illegal constructions. He said the developers, especially the residents of the area got permissions from the Town Municipal Administration for constructions in the area while LDA was also responsible for passing maps of the new buildings in the area. Residents of the Walled City, Asif Ali Mirza and Abdul Razzak, through their counsel Muhammad Azhar Siddique, said that local authorities had allowed the construction of a commercial plaza in the vicinity. He submitted that the respondents excavated the adjoining property for building a basement, thereby damaging the property of the petitioners and started raising illegal constructions over the said property without any sanctioned site plan and without obtaining permission from the authorities concerned.