KARACHI, May 7: The two Sindh High Court-appointed liquidators for the Alliance Motors and T.J. Ibrahim and Company have decided, in principle, to file a joint proposal for part payment of stuck-up dues of investors.
The reference filed by one of the liquidators, SHC official assignee Bashir A. Memon, is to be withdrawn and a fresh reference submitted to the SHC by him and Advocate Shafi Mohammadi, the other liquidator.
The liquidators had talks with the National Accountability Bureau authorities in Karachi on May 6 and an agreement was reached between them on withdrawal of the pending reference made unilaterally by Mr Memon.
The new reference will also be submitted to Justice Zahid Kurban Alavi, the SHC judge seized of the matter. The details of the new reference are to be worked out in further consultations.
The pending reference rejected 10,154 claims as bogus, sought repayment of the principal amounts together with dividends to the extent of 25 per cent and inducted the NAB in the process for the first time.
NOTICE TO AG: The Sindh High Court on Wednesday issued notice to the advocate-general in a writ petition moved by the SHC Bar Association against ‘hurdles’ being created by the provincial board of revenue in allotment of plots in a lawyers’ housing colony.
The association said it was allotted 100 acres in Deh Taisar, Tapo Sangal, Karachi West, at the rate of Rs30,000 per acre in 1993. The land was to be allotted to the SHCBA members on a no-profit-no-loss basis. While the process of allotment to individual lawyers was under way, the Sindh Urban State Land (Cancellation of Allotments, Conversion and Exchanges) Ordinance was promulgated by the provincial governor in January 2001. It cancelled all allotments, conversions and exchanges made or effected free of cost or at below the prevailing market rate. Non-profit organizations and housing colonies were, however, excluded from the purview of the ordinance.
The petition said the SHCBA was a non-profit, voluntary association of lawyers and had no intention of making money by developing or transferring plots to its members. Even otherwise, the ordinance could not override the Transfer of Property Act, the latter being a law enacted by the legislature. Yet the provincial board of revenue was out to create obstacles in the establishment of the lawyers’ colony.
Filed by SHCBA President Muneer A. Malik and Secretary Yawar Farooqui, the petition came up before a division bench, comprising Justices Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Rehmat Hussain Jaferi and it directed that a notice be issued to the advocate-general.