LAHORE, May 26: A division bench of the Lahore High Court on Thursday dismissed as unconstitutional and illegal an intra-court appeal moved by the State Bank of Pakistan seeking that its decision to seek classified information about depositors be declared as valid.

Comprising Justice Sheikh Abdur Rashid and Syed Shabbar Raza Razvi, the bench observed that the SBP’s directions to commercial banks to furnish personal information of depositors whose annual profit on their accounts was Rs10,000 or more was against the public interest and betrayed the trust of the people.

The court held that as a statutory institution, the State Bank was obliged to remain within the confines of the State Bank Act of 1956 and the Banking Companies Ordinance 1952, which stipulated that classified information of depositors was a sacred trust and could in no manner be divulged even on the demand of the government.

Referring to the SBP circulars through which the SBP sought personal information of depositors for the purpose of Central Board of Revenue, the court observed that the State Bank could not pass on such information to any public or private institution and any such instruction was unconstitutional and illegal.

Justice Mohammad Ghani of the High Court had, on Feb 18, 2004, struck down the SBP circulars as unconstitutional, declaring that the SBP had no business to furnish such data to the CBR which had its own sources to collect the information.