KARACHI, May 18: Justice Mushir Alam of the Sindh High Court asked a federal attorney on Thursday to inform him on June 4 whether the samples of Australian wheat found unfit for human consumption were intact and available with the government or its laboratories.

The interim order was passed in a suit instituted by M/s Tradesmen International (Pvt) Limited, importers of the rejected consignments, for recovery of $1,011,375 deposited by them as performance guarantee for importing the wheat, and of Rs976,400,000 as liquidated damages and Rs600,000,000 as unliquidated damages though Advocate Abdul Hafeez Pirzada.

Appearing for the defendant Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco), Advocate Qazi Abdul Hameed submitted that his client had already applied for arbitration under Section 34 of the Arbitration Act as stipulated by the agreement signed by it with the plaintiff company. The suit was not maintainable in view of the arbitration clause in the agreement.