QUETTA, July 29: The Balochistan High Court has suspended the operation of impugned notices sent to a petitioner by Saudi-Pak Commercial Bank, subject to furnishing a surety of Rs500 million out of the principal amount of finance facility reportedly advanced to the petitioner, Shaikh Abdul Sattar Lasi.

The court also instructed Mr Lasi to regularly deposit rents of the mortgaged properties with the registrar till the decision on his petition.

A division bench of the high court, comprising Chief Justice Raja Fayyaz Ahmed and Justice Akhtar Zaman Mulghani, directed that the surety be furnished within two weeks and adjourned the hearing for one month.

Mr Nafees Siddiqui advocate appearing for Saudi-Pak Commercial Bank stated that the bank had sent notices to auction the mortgaged property of Sattar Lasi group against an outstanding liability of Rs1.2 billion, which was going to be effective on Aug 4.

Mr Lasi filed a constitutional petition in the high court challenging the provisions of Section 15 of the Financial Institutions (Recovery of Finances) Ordinance 2001, and stating that this law was supra-constitutional.

The petitioner also said the bank was creating a parallel judicial system and prayed that since Section 15 was ultra vires of the Constitution, it should be suspended and the auction might be suspended.

Mr Nafees Siddiqui contended that the petition was not maintainable in view of the provisions of Article 199 of the Constitution and for reason that the constitutional jurisdiction of the court could be invoked only where no other alternate remedy was provided under any other law.—PPI