ISLAMABAD, June 20: The government on Tuesday requested the Supreme Court to find a middle way between accepting and rejecting petitions challenging the sale of the Pakistan Steel Mills for Rs21.68 billion.

Attorney-General Makhdoom Ali Khan cited various judgments to establish that courts normally refrained from interfering in governments’ economic policies.

However, Justice Javed Iqbal, a member of the bench hearing the petitions, observed that governments did not enjoy unfettered rights on the pretext of pursuing economic policies and that there should be some safeguards for people’s rights; otherwise it was open to judicial review.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, leading the nine-member bench, observed that the court had to examine the case within the four corners of the Privatisation Commission Ordinance 2000 which had obligated the government to sell a state property for poverty reduction and debt retirement.

The attorney-general argued that issues like property rights and mutation and matters concerning title deeds should not be decided by the highest body like the apex court; such controversies should rather be best left to appropriate forums to decide.

He said that while any illegality in the process of privatisation was open to adjudication, the privatisation policy itself was not. This court, he added, should always explore avenues to uphold executive acts.

The attorney-general said that issues regarding sale prices of units were an arena where courts should not venture.

The PSM should be privatised to get higher prices for the purpose of running the steel mills only and not for any other purpose, he argued.

He pointed out that there were alternatives to keep the steel mills running, like a massive injection of investment to modernise plants. The government, he said, had tried this option in the past and the mills also worked well for a while, but it might not do well in future. That’s why the government considered the option of privatising it, he added.

“This is a conjecture that PSM may not work well in future,” the bench observed.

“We are in the field of conjectures,” the AG replied, while referring to the petitions.

He cited a case in which India’s supreme court had rejected arguments that the telecommunication sector should not be privatised since it connected people and the private investor would not like to invest in remote areas. The Indian court held that national policies should be best left to the executive and parliament to decide.

Yet, in the case of Bharat Petroleum, the same Indian court struck down its privatisation because its sale was prohibited under the law and held that this entity should remain with the state.

The AG referred to some press clippings and said that though these might establish a desirability to look into a matter, it should not be considered to be evidence.

He also recalled the dissolution of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s government and said the apex court had held that press clippings could be a basis for an executive authority to arrive at a conclusion but nowhere it said these were also evidence before a court of law.

The AG then referred to a short story by George Orwell on ‘shooting an elephant.’ He said the writer had to kill a normal elephant on the hype and pressure created by villagers that the animal was mad and that the writer was embarking upon an adventure for the good of the people.

The attorney-general then said there should be a middle way in shooting or not shooting, adding that tentative observations of the court did not make good headlines.

PPI adds: The chief justice observed that the decision to privatise Pakistan Steel Mills had been cancelled in the year 1997.

The attorney-general submitted that only the Council of Common Interest and a joint session of parliament had the jurisdiction to amend this policy.