Another old file, another quiet ending. In Syed Abdullah Ali Talat's constitutional petition against the Karachi Development Authority and others (3169 of 2018) — a property matter — the Sindh High Court at Karachi (Justice Adnan-ul-Karim Memon, author) dismissed the petition in default on 02 October 2026.
The petition dated from 2018 and was last fixed for hearing in March 2021. When the matter came up, no one appeared for the petitioner. The court held the petitioner had prima facie lost interest in the lis and dismissed it in default, in favour of the respondents. As with its companion dismissal the same week (Ghulam Mohammad v. Province of Sindh), nothing was decided on the merits.
Property disputes against development authorities are precisely the kind of litigation where delay is fatal twice over: first because the underlying facts on the ground keep changing while the file sleeps, and second because — as this case demonstrates — the court will eventually stop waiting. A petitioner who wants KDA-directed relief must stay in the fight; vanishing for five years forfeits the forum.
The broader pattern across this week's SHC cause list is unmistakable, from tax references to constitutional petitions: the court is clearing dead wood. Dormant files are being dismissed, not adjourned. For litigants with old pending matters, the signal is clear — revive and prosecute, withdraw cleanly, or watch the file die in default. Soi hui file adalat me nahi, record room me rehti hai — and the record room is where this petition now rests.