KARACHI: Waqar Ahmed Siddiqui, a resident of Lucknow Co-operative Housing Society Korangi Karachi has urged to amend Section 15 of Sindh Transparency and Right to Information Act-2016 by making head of department answerable and accountable for negligence of their duties. 

Section 15 says "Where a Designated Official has, without any reasonable cause, refused to receive an application, has not furnished information within time limits, or with malafide intent denied the request or knowingly gave incorrect, incomplete or misleading information, the commission may, after providing sufficient opportunity of defence to the Designated Official, direct the said officer to pay fine which may extend to ten percent (10%) of his basic pay." Waqar Ahmed Siddiqui filed Complaint No. 26 of 2025 in the Sindh Information Commission that his Society has been under government control since March 2023, where the Cooperative Department has appointed Ten (10) administrators one after another in the last two years for conducting elections in the society. The Society's bank accounts were frozen before and remain frozen today.

Therefore, all these administrators have not only been collecting dues in cash from the members but were also involved in the transfer of plots, their verifications, illegal constructions on them, and selling contracts for the provision of basic necessities to the society members. These private administrators, Muhammad Shakeel and Abdul Waheed Tanoli, did not even spare the welfare plot ST-29 of a parking area in the Society, and to hide their crime, Muhammad Shakeel made a tenancy agreement with a person named Ehsanullah, received another twenty-five Lakh rupees in cash from him, and fled.  In this connection, the applicant wrote a memorandum to the Secretary Cooperative, Muhammad Nawaz Soho, on September 19, 2024, invoking his Right to Information, requesting that since the Society is under government control through administrators appointed by the Cooperative Department, he should be provided with the details of all these administrators, a statement of cash receipts and expenditures from the Society members during the tenure of each of them, details of the plots transferred by these administrators, details of the positions sustained by Society funds, copies of various agreements related to Society affairs, what action has been taken so far against the blatant corruption of Administrator Muhammad Shakeel, and what legal action has been taken so far against the former management involved in corruption, etc., etc.

The complainant knew that it was not possible to prepare answers to these questions without forming a committee on the affairs of Lucknow Society, while allegedly the Secretary Cooperative Muhammad Nawaz Soho, Advisor Cooperative Ehsanur Rehman Mazari, and Registrar Cooperative Abdul Wajid Sheikh were themselves the central jugglers of this "cooperative circus," and according to the remarks of the Hon'ble Justice High Court Sindh Zafar Ahmed Rajput, "...

The sole focus of these unqualified appointees appears to be the swift plundering of the funds and assets of the superseded societies with the aim to milk them dry, with no genuine intent to resolve the pressing issues faced by their members.." .  The applicant resorted to the Information Commission. On January 20, due to non-appearance at the first hearing, a show-cause notice dated February 10, 2025, was issued to the Designated Official, Owais Taj Arain (BPS-17), for action under Section 115.

The Designated Official of the Cooperative Department reported this negligence of turning a blind eye to the corruption of his superiors on his own, Waqar Ahmed concluded.