LAHORE, Nov 1: The Lahore High Court has held that any future sale of the Pakistan Engineering Company (Peco) shares by the National Investment Corporation and the ICP, will be subject to its approval.

The court issued the direction on a petition through which former Peco proprietor C M Lateef challenged the legality of direct sale of 20.73 per cent shares by the NIT and 0.5 per cent shares by the ICP contending that the sale had to be regulated through the Privatization Commission. Justice Hamid Farooq issued notices to the PC and the NIT, which sold a total of 1,179,530 Peco shares, the ICP, which sold 271,000 shares, and the Peco, seeking them to file their reply within two weeks.

Petitioner's counsel Syed Mansoor Ali Shah said only the PC was competent to make any transaction in the sale of Peco shares. The NIT and the ICP, which now owned its shares, were not authorized to make any such bargain.

The NIT and the ICP, Mr Shah pleaded, had offloaded the Peco privately in violation of the law. He also submitted that the plaintiffs as former owners of the company had a preemptive right to purchase the shares.

He submitted that the private share holding in the Peco had increased from 45.51 per cent to 66.72 per cent and private shareholders were unknown and they were coming up because the sale of shares was malafide.