ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court asked the federal government on Friday to approach the World Bank (WB) for timely disposal of a pending petition before it by a Chinese firm for early commencement of works on the development of 4,320MW run-of-the-river Dasu Hydro project on the Indus River.

“The matter should be taken up by the government with the WB so that the petition pending before it is decided at the earliest,” said a three-judge bench headed by Justice Dost Mohammad Khan.

The bench had taken up the petition of Messers Power Construction Corporation of China Limited (PCCCL) seeking a direction for the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) not to open the result of the pre-qualification of the bidding for the construction of the Dasu Hydro project in Kohistan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

At the last hearing on Aug 26, the Supreme Court had provided an opportunity to the Chinese firm to approach the WB through an appeal against the decision by Wapda of ousting the company from awarding the contract of construction of civil works on Stage-I of the dam.

In 2014, Wapda had announced an electricity generation project in which the International Development Association (IDA) — an organisation forming part of the World Bank Group — approved the financing of Stage-I of the project with a credit of $588.45 million.

Supreme Court took up the petition seeking direction for Wapda not to open the result of pre-qualification of bidding for construction of Dasu hydro project

In August 2014, the project director of Dasu Hydropower Project (Wapda) issued a pre-qualification document (PQD) inviting applications from interested parties for the construction of the main works-I (MW-I) that includes hydraulic structure, spillway, low-level outlets, river diversions and hydraulic steel structures as well as procurement of MW-II, including underground power complex, tunnels and hydraulic steel structures.

On March 30 this year, the project director disqualified the Chinese firm from the pre-qualification of the MW-I and MW-II, which the company claimed was done on the dictation of the World Bank.

On Friday, Shahzada Mazhar, representing Wapda, informed the court that the Chinese construction company had approached the World Bank.

At this, Justice Qazi Faez Isa suggested to the counsel to wait for the outcome of the petition with which the WB was seized with.

But Justice Dost Mohammad Khan was of the view that further delay in the construction of the dam would aggravate the problems, adding that the development of the Dasu dam involving great national interest should have been completed a decade ago. The delay has already escalated the total cost of the project manifold which will definitely burden Wapda as well as taxpayers of the country, the judge observed.

Represented by Advocate Salman Aslam Butt, the petition moved by the Chinese firm had challenged in the Supreme Court the June 29, 2016, intra-court appeal in the Lahore High Court in which the petitioner’s request to suspend the operation of its disqualification from the bidding process was rejected.

In its petition before the apex court, the PCCCL argued that non-interference on part of the high court in the face of manifest illegality and denial of the petitioner’s fundamental rights to the equal protection of the law and due process could not be sustained and were bad in the eyes of law.

The disqualification of the company on account of dictated exercise of powers qualified as an arbitrary exercise of executive authority and, therefore, liable to be set aside on this ground alone, the petition argued.

The company stated that it was a state-owned enterprise with almost 30 subsidiaries and had been active in the industry since 1950s, besides responsible for more than 65 per cent of China’s hydropower projects, including world’s biggest hydropower project — the Three Gorges Hydropower Project.

Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2016