Instructs the police to register complaints from citizens about illegal parking fee collection
HYDERABAD:
With the Sindh government’s July 2025 ban on charging car parking charges falling on deaf ears, a court in Hyderabad has directed the authorities to implement this ban.
The 1st Additional District and Sessions Judge has asked the police to register complaints of the people against extortion of illegal parking charges and at the same time order the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (HMC) to implement the ban.
On 8 July 2025, the Sindh government announced that no contractors would be allowed to collect parking charges on roads in the province and that all existing contracts in this regard were cancelled. A month later, on 4 August, the HMC also announced that all chargeable parking contracts in the city have been revoked, with the exception of “designated lots, spaces and areas specifically maintained by council parking”.
However, such notices, it seems, remained confined to the archives as citizens continued to complain of being extorted for parking charges in various parts of the city. One of the citizens, advocate Faisal Mughal, approached the court last month with a plea to order registration of an FIR against a person who forced him to pay a parking fee in the Saddar area, which falls under the Cantonment Board of Hyderabad (CBH).
According to the lawyer, he even took his complaint to the Cant police station, but the police refused to lodge the case, prompting him to knock on the door of the concerned court to order an FIR. During the hearing, CBH’s lawyer Ishrat Ali Lohar contested the jurisdiction of the court in the present case, while pointing out that Mughal did not approach the relevant forum, CBH’s Cantonment Board Care (CBC), before coming to court.
It was also pointed out to the court that CBH does not come under the district administration of Hyderabad or under the local bodies. Advocate Zulfiqar Durrani, who appeared on behalf of HMC, argued that all parking contracts in the city were canceled through circular number G/230/2025 dated August 4, 2025.
“… if anyone is issuing receipts in the name of HMC, they are fake and legal action should be taken against them,” the lawyer stated. Meanwhile, the court observed that the CBH is run under the Cantonment Act, 1924, which is a federal law. “Thus, the federal government is empowered to issue the necessary directions to the cantonment boards regarding functions and collection of taxes,” the judge stressed.
However, the judge reminded the police that if the public approached with complaints about illegal parking fee collection in the areas under HMC or under CBH, the police are obliged to investigate the matter and take action if an illegality amounting to extortion is uncovered. The court noted that the Chief Minister of Sindh, Syed Murad Ali Shah, was asked to notify a ban on charged parking in the face of widespread public grievances in the province.
“The fruits given by the Sindh government and the CM should reach the public,” the judge said and directed the HMC municipal commissioner to monitor such illegal activities and display the government’s ban on parking charges in all affected areas for public awareness. The court also ordered the filing of cases against persons posing as contractors for HMC or its municipal corporations.
