June 26, 2007	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 10, 1428

ISLAMABAD, June 25: The Supreme Court on Monday served notices on all the respondents on a petition moved by the Attock Group against its disqualification from bidding for the Pakistan State Oil Company Ltd which is scheduled to be privatised.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice Falak Sher put off the hearing of the case for Thursday and summoned complete records of the ongoing bidding process of the PSO under the Privatisation Commission Ordinance 2000, Advocate Ali Sibtain Fazli, counsel of the group, told Dawn.

Filed by the Attock Group — a consortium of the National Refinery Ltd, Attock Petroleum Ltd, Pakistan Oilfields Ltd and Attock Oil Company Ltd — the respondents in the case are PSO, J.P. Morgan Pakistan Ltd, Privatisation Commission (PC) and the federal government. The government intends to sell 51 per cent of the shareholding of the PSO to the ultimate successful bidder.

The court has also directed the Attock Group to implead all the bidders participating in the privatisation of the PSO, about to happen any time, as parties in the case, Fazli said.

The petition seeks to challenge the rejection by the Sindh High Court with a pleading that if the consortium was prevented from bidding process, as allegedly being planned by the PC, the national exchequer would be poorer for not fetching reasonable proceeds.

Since the consortium was not officially communicated by the PC about its exclusion from the bidding process, the petition alleged, there was reasonable apprehensions that there was a mala fide manoeuvre to prevent it from taking part in the privatisation of the state assets.

The petition pleaded that the disqualification and exclusion of the consortium from the bidding violate the principles of natural justice.