ISLAMABAD: The Sup­re­me Court allowed the federal government on Friday to proceed with the sale of the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) shares after overturning a Peshawar High Court (PHC) stay against the decision to sell off the government’s shares in the company.

A two-judge Supreme Court bench, consisting of Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan and Justice Gulzar Ahmed, granted an appeal filed by the federal government on Thursday, challenging the high court’s Oct 3 interim order to staying the sale of 10 per cent of the government’s shares in the oil and gas exploration company.

Know more: KP challenged OGDCL sale with ‘unclean hands’: centre

On Friday, the apex court asked the government, as well as the Privatisation Commission (PC), to accept bids, but not to transfer the shares until the court’s final decision in the matter. The case will again be taken up on Monday.

On Oct 3, a division bench of the PHC had issued an interim order on a challenge moved by the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

Earlier, the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCOP) on Oct 3 last year and the PC on Jan 8-9 this year had decided to put on sale 10 per cent or 322 million ordinary shares of the government in OGDCL to international and domestic investors. The PC Board even approved the appointment of a consortium consisting of Messers Merrill Lynch International, Citigroup and KASB Bank to act as financial advisers for the transaction.

On Friday, Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt and Additional Attorney General (AAG) Waqar Rana appeared before the Supreme Court to argue the petition, jointly moved by the petroleum secretary, OGDCL and PC.

They argued that the KP government, challenging the privatisation process, had concealed important facts, ostensibly with mala fide intentions and thus invoked the discretionary jurisdiction of the high court with “unclean hands”, especially when it was not an aggrieved party.

The government’s appeal argued that the provincial government, while filing the petition in the high court, was legally obligated to implead the federal government as a party but had failed to do so, ignoring the fact that the decision of divestment of OGDCL shares was taken by the federal cabinet.

Published in Dawn, October 11th , 2014