The Sterling Record of Pakistan Supreme Court

The Sterling Record of Pakistan Supreme Court

The Inheritors of Quaid's Principles

The News International

ISLAMABAD: In addition to the NRO cases which started on Monday, the Supreme Court has maintained an excellent track record in eight months after its restoration.

It has taken up cases of corruption worth tens of billions of rupees to recover the looted public wealth.In addition to suo moto notices taken in numerous human rights cases, cleansing the superior judiciary from the likes of Dogar and removing constitutional distortions introduced by General Musharraf and his hand-picked judges, the Supreme Court after its re-instatement in March 2009 has so far picked up for hearing corruption cases, illegal and controversial allotments of state-land on throw away prices, fraudulent bank loaning and other financial matters involving tens of billions of rupees.

The apex court has not only made the previously Dogar-court protected Harris Steel owners to agree to cough up the Bank of Punjab's Rs9 billion but it has also made the Sindh government to cancel the controversial allotment of high-price Karachi land for peanuts. In addition, the Supreme Court is also reviewing allotments of state-land both by the Sindh and Punjab governments during the past several years besides probing the Pakistan Steel Mills corruption case.Some of the major cases decided or taken up by the present Supreme Court include:

1- Blocking controversial sale of 240 acres Karachi land of Evacuee Trust Property Board: Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry took suo moto notice of the media report about the handing over of 240 acres of state land in Karachi worth billions of rupees for a song to a private party after half-heartedly fighting a case in the Supreme Court. According to the report the apex court had ordered ETPB to hand over the land to the successful petitioner at a rate of Rs3-5 lakhs per acre while the ongoing rate for property in the area was estimated at Rs50 million per acre. Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry issued orders

that survey of land held by the Evacuee Trust be conducted and its current price be fixed. The report, which appeared in The News, had also revealed that almost each and every inch of the total 2,380 acres of state-owned land, belonging to the Evacuee Properties Trust (EPT) Board in Karachi worth a whopping Rs60 billion, has been grabbed by the land mafia.

2- Bank of Punjab case: During the Musharraf-Chaudhrys' regime, Haris Steel owners in connivance the then BoP President Hamesh Khan took a financial facility of Rs8.6 billion on fake collaterals, bogus documents and fraudulent companies. During the Dogar court era, Haris Steel owners influenced the court through some influential lawyers and got their confiscated assets released. Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry after his restoration on March 16 took up the mega corruption scandal and repeatedly issued orders to arrest the major players involved in the scam, ordered confiscation of assets of the looters and a considerable amount has so far been deposited with the BoP. Now the Harris Steel owner has assured the apex court that he would return all the money but named those top lawyers, bankers and a journalist who allegedly got

millions from him to bribe the Dogar court.

3- Sindh land allotment cases: The News highlighted a glaring case of contempt of the highest judicial forum - the Supreme Court of Pakistan - where an official committee comprising middle ranking officials allowed regularization of 50 acres of Karachi land at throw away prices thus causing losses running into hundreds of millions to the state exchequer for the benefit of a few. The Supreme Court took suo moto notice of the case that led to the immediate cancellation of the allotment. However, the Supreme Court had called for all allotments made involving hundreds of billions of rupees land during the last ten years by the Sindh government to review each and every case.

A total of 1,500 persons were said to be allotted thousands of acres of state land in Sindh during the last 10 years. In one case the State land measuring more than 75,000 sq yards situated in the heart of Karachi, whose market value was once assessed at Rs7 billion was leased out to a private party for 99 years by the Sindh government for merely Rs155 million, it is learnt. In another case a thrice rejected claim earlier considered a "fraudulent" and "forged" was finally declared "genuine" and thus regularised. In yet another case while departing from the established practice the authorities without considering field report about the site conditions, approved a case of regularisation against the land where there was a graveyard. This is believed to emerge as a major scandal against the present Sindh regime.

4- Punjab land allotments: The Supreme Court has directed the Punjab Board of Revenue to produce all cases of allotments made by the government during the last four-five years amid reports that thousands of acres of land was doled out to favourites.

5- Federal Government Housing Foundation land scam: Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry took suo moto notice on a column of Daily Jang regarding illegal allotment of government plots for peanuts by the Federal Government Housing Foundation besides the controversial purchase of over 2,000 kanals of land in the suburbs of Islamabad for government housing scheme.

The chief justice ordered the CDA to conduct an inquiry in this regard. The inquiry was concluded and it proved that irregularities in plots' allotment were made. The case is still pending with the apex court.

6- Steel Mills scandal: Following Geo's report in Kamran Khan show about mega corruption and massive financial and administrative irregularities in Pakistan Steel Mills, the Chief Justice of Pakistan took suo moto notice of the loot and plunder of this national institution. Currently the apex court is hearing the case. Because of the massive corruption in the PSM, the biggest steel unit of the country was defaulted. Pakistan Steel Mills reached to a stage of collapse because of award of all important contracts to some favourite businessmen of the present regime. A three-member bench of the apex court, comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Jawwad S Khawaja and Justice Ghulam Rabbani, is hearing the case, which involves a loss of Rs22 billion to the public sector enterprise.

7- Sugar price issue: After cartelisation of sugar mafia and unprecedented hike in sugar price, the apex court took suo moto notice and after hearing and analysing the whole sugar marketing process, fixed the sugar price at Rs40 per kg and ordered federal and provincial governments to take all necessary steps to ensure the sale of sugar in the whole country on the price as decided by the Supreme Court. However, the federal and provincial governments failed to implement the apex court's decision.

8- Carbon Tax suo moto notice: In the federal budget 2009-10, the government imposed 10 per cent petroleum levy which was meant for removing polluted contents from the petroleum products for betterment of environment. However, no consultation was done with the Ministry of Environment and the government's financial managers admitted that despite its name it would simply be a government's revenue generation source. The Supreme Court took suo moto notice and nullified carbon tax. However, the government proclaimed another ordinance within 48 hours and re-imposed the same percentage of levy on oil products but under a different name.

9- Missing persons case: The Supreme Court directed the Interior Ministry to submit before the court details pertaining to Pakistani citizens who have been handed over to foreign countries. A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Javed Iqbal, hearing the case of missing persons, observed that it will not give more time to the government for tracing the whereabouts of the missing people.

10- Musharraf's electricity theft case: After disclosure of theft of electricity of lacs of rupees by ex-military dictator General Pervez Musharraf and some other influential residents of Islamabad's Chak Shahzad farmhouses, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry took suo moto notice and ordered inquiry.

11- SC orders Punjab to reinstate ad hoc lecturers in three days: The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal of the Punjab Government with costs and directed it to reinstate the 90 lecturers within three days. The lecturers were recruited in 1994, but their services were terminated in 2001. Later the top court ordered reinstatement of their services on September 25, 2002 but the court's order was not implemented by the then Punjab Government.

12- Alleged corruption of former Attorney General Latif Khosa: The Supreme Court took up the case of alleged corruption of former attorney general Latif Khosa on the application and affidavit of a citizen. The citizen had alleged that Latif Khosa had taken bribe of Rs3 million from him for influencing a court decision.

13- Declaring Nov 3rd actions unconstitutional: After the parliament failed to play its role in removing the constitutional distortions of the ousted dictator General Musharraf, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry heard the case and declared the Nov 3, emergency and PCO as unconstitutional, dismissed all the judges appointed on Dogar's recommendation, ordered sending of references to Supreme Judicial Council against PCO judges for taking oath under the PCO despite the 7-member bench orders of Nov 3, directed the government to lay all ordinances of Musharraf regime promulgated during imposition of emergency period before the parliament and get them approved within four months.

14- Contempt of court notices to PCO judges: The Supreme Court sent contempt of court notices to those superior judiciary judges, who violating the seven-member bench verdict of Nov 3 which had barred these judges from taking oath under any emergency or PCO order of General Pervez Musharraf.

15- NRO petitions: Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry constituted full court to hear NRO petitions which were filed after promulgation of NRO in 2007. These petitions challenged the NRO for being a discriminatory and unconstitutional law because of which alleged corruption of hundreds of billions of rupees was forgiven with one stroke of pen. The apex court started hearing these petitions from December 7, 2009 on daily basis.