The Supreme Court has summoned the record of seven parties that have been cleared to bid for 51 percent shares of Pakistan State Oil Ltd on June 28.
A two-member bench of the Court comprising Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice Falak Sher summoned the record after preliminary hearing of an appeal filed by the Attock Goup of Companies against their disqualification to participate in the PSO sell-off process.
Justice Javed Iqbal observed that the Court would closely scrutinise the process and the working of the Privatisation Commission. Earlier, the Sindh High Court had upheld the Commission''s decision to disqualify Attock Group on the ground that "it had concealed adverse information which was required as per Request for Statement Qualification (RSQ) and for not having carried out due diligence exercise"
Adjourning the case for Thursday June 28, the court instructed the Group to also implead the qualified parties so that they could also present their point of view before the court''s decision on the appeal.
In its appeal the Attock group consortium stated that it is engaged in exploration, production, refining, manufacturing of petroleum products and chemicals. The Group had successfully participated in the privatisation process of National Refinery Limited (NRL) in 2003.
The Group''s bid of Rs 483 per share of NRL against Rs 260 of the next bidder, enabled the government to earn Rs 7.579 billion more in the NRL privatisation process.
The counsel for the petitioner, Ali Sibtain Fazli argued that by permitting the Attock group to take part in the bidding, the government would benefit by several billion even if the Group does not ultimately succeed.
Counsel for the Privatisation Commission Waseem Sjjad opposed the petition. However, Justice Falk Sher asked the counsel not to oppose the appeal, as the Court wanted to see why the group was allowed to participate in the earlier bidding and why it has been disqualified from PSO bidding.
PC sources told Business Recorder that PC wanted to complete the sell of PSO before June30, but after the pre-bid meeting, the seven qualified parties asked for more time to complete the bidding formalities.