24 July 2004	Saturday	06 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425

LAHORE, July 23: Chief Justice Iftikhar Husain Chaudhry kicked off the second round of payments to Taj Company victims with the distribution of cheques among some of them at a ceremony here on Friday.

The chief justice said: "We take care of them (the victims); we share their mental agony and financial difficulties and are trying our best to ensure that all of them get their dues in full."

The court liquidator and former judge of the LHC, Hafeezullah Cheema, said when the court took over the case of Taj Company victims in 1990, the company's assets were Rs550 million against a liability of Rs2.65 billion. The court helped the victims by collecting Rs860 million by disposing of company's properties.

He said the government provided an amount of Rs240 million for distribution among the victims in the first phase in March this year. An amount of Rs350 million had been allocated for distribution in the second phase. He said a number of victims had not so far filed their claims, and they should do so now.

He said his office had already sent cheques amounting to Rs100 million to claimants. Another amount of Rs200 million was to be earmarked for the third phase, he said. He hoped that Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz would manage to get written-off a company loan of Rs70 million. He said he raised the question in March and Mr Aziz appreciated it as a noble cause.

WRIT OPPOSED: Advocate-General Syed Shabbar Raza Razvi has submitted that superior judiciary does not have power to interfere in a constitutional scheme of things nor can it dispense with any institution established under the constitution.

Opposing a writ petition filed by Advocate MD Tahir against the size of the federal and provincial cabinets, the AG submitted before the LHC on Friday that all state institutions like parliament and provincial assemblies, the executive and the judiciary, which were part of a federal parliamentary structure envisaged by the constitution, functioned in a state of sovereignty in a 'trichotomy of power'.

The judiciary, he submitted, was obliged to enforce the constitutional scheme and interpret and explain laws like the custodian of the constitution and the statutory structure of the state.

It was empowered to interfere only in situations where the constitution was being violated and illegality was committed. He also submitted that the petition itself was an infringement of the constitutional scheme. The court adjourned further hearing of the petition till July 27.