KARACHI, Dec 6: The Supreme Court has held that the division bench of the Sindh High Court, which is seized of the appeal of Mehran Motors, will decide the matter within one month.

The bench, comprising Justice Munir A. Shaikh, Justice Rana Bhagwandas and Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, also held that in case it was not done so, it would be open to the petitioner to make an application to the division bench in the appeal for passing an appropriate order in terms regarding remitting the sale proceeds abroad, which application shall be considered on its own merits.

As requested by the counsel for the parties, this petition was converted into an appeal and disposed of.

This petition of Mehran Motor Cars Company, directed against a judgment of a Sindh High Court division bench in an appeal filed by the petitioner against the order of the Executing Court through which sale of the cars was allowed on the reference of the official assignee, had been disposed of as having become infructuous.

The order was objected to on the ground that when it was passed there was allegedly a compromise between the parties for the disposal of the cars and dealing with the sale proceeds, which was not taken into consideration.

Counsel Khalid Anwar for the petitioner stated that the appeal could not have been disposed of as having become infructuous for the petitioners wanted an order for disposal of the appeal in terms thereof.

It was also admitted that no joint application by both the parties was filed before the bench for passing an order in accordance with law. However, an application was filed by the petitioners under section 151 CPC for asking the official assigning to produce the original compromise deed, which, on the order of the court, he did produce.

Justice Munir A. Sheikh held that it was brought to the court notice that, subsequent to the order dated 25.9.2001, the executing court had passed another order on 18.10.2001, through which the sale proceeds of 800 cars was allowed to be remitted abroad by the respondents/ decree holder.

Against this order, an appeal was filed, which was pending before the Sindh High Court.

Counsel for the respondent, Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, conceded that the execution judge had refused to take on record the alleged compromise and passing an order on the basis thereof, which was the subject matter of appeal. Therefore there was no bar on the petitioner to raise all the objections against the order of the executing judge, passed on the alleged compromise or any other point, which was available under the law to the petitioner. It was also held that the order impugned in this petition, disposing of the previous appeal, would not be any hindrance in the way of petitioners to do so.

“We have also noticed that through the impugned judgment, the division bench has not made any decision on merits but merely has disposed of the appeal as having become infructuous as the matter was stated to be dead, therefore, the petitioners shall be at liberty to raise all the points available to them under the law in the appeal pending before the bench and the bench shall decide all these points independently.”

Counsel for the respondent, as a matter of courtesy, had given an undertaking that sale proceeds of the cars shall not be remitted abroad for a period of one month.

Thus the longstanding dispute between Daewoo and Mehran Motors, the importer of the vehicles mainly used as yellow cabs, has now been ruled upon by the Supreme Court.

These cars were imported almost ten years ago and thereafter disputes broke out between the manufacturer and the importer arising out of the fact that after a change of government the sale of the cars was drastically restricted.