Courts & Floods

A private TV channel showing the havocs played by the floods in Sindh also showed a commendable brave act worth emulating by all. The defiant and determined villagers of a small area built a long mud embankment (Bandh) on their own on self help basis that stopped the flood waters in its tracks at their gates and thus saved them precious lives, cattle and properties. However, an ex-minister and a politician at the calamity site disclosed that about 25 persons from a nearby area had obtained stay orders from the court against construction of  any dykes on their lands, with the result the floods inundated their area and they suffered a lot of damage to their cattle and properties. They too would have been spared the loss had the courts not granted them the stay orders.

I am no legal expert, but is there no mechanism to vacate such stays by some local authority in the overall public interest, if emergently required?

Col. Riaz Jafri (Retd)