HBL privatisation declared lawful

The Supreme Court on Wednesday declared the privatisation of Habib Bank Limited lawful. Disposing of petitions, a three-member bench led by Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani had announced a short order in the matter on November 29, 2011.
A 70-page detailed judgement was authored by Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani in identical constitutional petitions filed by Dr Akhtar Hassan Khan and Watan Party through its president Barrister Zafar-Ullah-Khan, who had made Federation of Pakistan and others as respondents. The petitioners had challenged open HBL bidding of December 12, 2003 under Article 184(3) of the Constitution.
According to the judgement, one of the petitioners, Dr Akhtar Hassan Khan former Federal Secretary Planning, Government of Pakistan had alleged the bidding process of HBL was non-transparent saying the Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) approved issuance of bonds amounting to Rs 9.84 billion against income tax funds due to the HBL.
Dr Hassan had also pleaded in the petition that the Ministry of Finance also advised transfer of Rs 9.00 billion of HBL''s bad debts to the Corporate and Industrial Restructuring Corporation and in this way a benefit of Rs 18.84 billion was given to Habib Bank after short-listing of three bidders. He further said that if these benefits had been announced before the Expression of Interest (EoI), the response would have been much greater and multinational banks would have expressed interest.
Muhammad Ikram Chaudhry, the counsel for Dr Hassan had said in his arguments that the net assets of the HBL were valued at more than the highest bid at which it was sold. Aitzaz Ahsan, the counsel for Privatisation Commission, had objected, saying the petitions filed under Article 184(3) were not maintainable as neither any question of public importance with reference to enforcement of fundamental rights was involved, nor was a judicial review tenable in policy-making domain of the executive authority.
HBL''s counsel Makhdoom Ali Khan had narrated the history of the bank in his statement, saying the institution was ranked as one of the largest Banks in Asia prior to privatisation, querying as to how the nationalisation of the institution in 1974 reduced its market share. Khan also apprised the court of the reasons that were deemed appropriate by the Federal Government to privatise HBL.
He further questioned how the process initiated in 1995 got delayed; why various attempts to privatise HBL failed and the different steps taken from 2002 onward for approval of the final bid and signing of the share-purchase agreement in February 2004. The counsel also submitted before the bench that all the efforts reflected due diligence, transparency and a continued objective to ensure that the ownership of this important national strategic asset does not go in the hands of a buyer who does not have credible credentials.
S.M. Zafar, the counsel for the AKFED, submitted that a careful study of the various steps taken by the Federal Government and the Privatisation Commission (PC) to privatise HBL indicated that the entire process was carried out strictly within the parameters of law under the Privatisation Commission Ordinance 2000.
"The approval of the privatisation of HBL by the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation was within the purview of PC; it does not reflect violation of any statutory provisions; neither the process was tainted with lack of transparency or malafides nor the successful bidder lacked qualifications prescribed in law; and it is in accord with the best practices around the world and the law declared by the Supreme Court," the judgement concluded.