11 January 2005	Tuesday	29 Ziqa'ad 1425

LAHORE, Jan 10: The committee appointed by the Lahore High Court on Monday accepted the bid of a company from Karachi which offered Rs2.48 billion for four Ittefaq Group of Industries' steel units.

The bid was accepted after the three-member committee opened tenders invited under the direction of a single bench of the high court who scrapped the sale of the four unit to the Al-Rehmat Group of Companies from Faisalabad which offered Rs2.15 billion for them. The court also initiated fresh bidding process for the disposal of the units through an advertisement in the national and international press.

The sale of the units may not become effective under an order of an LHC division bench which said the bidding process was subject to its confirmation. The tenders were opened and post-bid negotiations initiated after a single bench ordered status quo for the bidding and sought on Jan 26 a report on conditions and details worked out for the disposal of the units.

The court ordered status quo on various applications filed by intending bidders, including the Haseeb Waqas Engineering Company and the Colony Textile Mills, which were represented by advocates Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Shahid Karim.

The petitioners complained that the committee, appointed by the LHC to sell the Ittefaq units, had refused to provide them details on the position of the units' stock, the description and measurement of land on which they were located and the condition of their machinery and other utilities and facilities.

The petitioners submitted that such an information was necessary in the sale of industry of such a big size. It became all the more important when the bidding and other process was being supervised by the high court which did not allow even a margin of error on the part of bidders.

They stated that the inventory of assets was prepared in 1998 and the committee did neither update it nor provided with the condition and their present market value.

Another objection raised by the applications was that the committee had refused a post-bidding negotiation which was a standard practice of auctions. Haseeb Waqas Engineering counsel Mr Shah told Dawn that contempt of court proceedings would be initiated against the committee members who wilfully ignored the high court direction.