LAHORE, June 26: The Lahore High Court on Monday put off till Sept 19 the hearing of a writ petition which challenged the sale of four steel units of the Ittefaq Group of Industries to settle bank loans secured by the family of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

The hearing was postponed, as the Sharif family counsel did not appear. Earlier, on the banks’ petition, the company judge had ordered the sale of the Ittefaq Foundry, the Brother Steel, the Ittefaq Brothers and the Ilyas Enterprises to the Al-Rehmat Group from Faisalabad

for Rs3.15 billion in July last year.

A three-member committee appointed by the court to oversee the auction conducted the sale.

Mr Sharif’s uncle Mian Meraj Din, who challenged the sale proceedings in the LHC under the Companies’ Ordinance, had opposed the deal.

The Meraj Din family, one of seven shareholders in the group, had said that the auction was in violation of Section 284 of the Companies Ordinance.

He said that the government had neither called a general meeting of all shareholders, nor had their approval been sought before initiating the auction process, which was required by the law.

The petitioner family also asked the court to order the units’ buyer to continue operating the Ittefaq Foundries, the largest steel-manufacturing units in the private sector.

Nawaz Sharif had surrendered the four steel units to eight banks as repayment of the loan amounting to Rs2.36 billion.