LAHORE, March 5: The Supreme Court admitted in its original jurisdiction on Monday a direct petition challenging a 1998 judgment passed by a three-member bench of the court in a criminal appeal.

A bench comprising Justices Munir A Sheikh and Rana Bhagwandas overruled an office objection that an individual grievance of little public importance which has already been conclusively adjudicated by the Supreme Court in a criminal appeal, could not be entertained in the Court’s human rights jurisdiction.

The petition relates to a 1987 transaction wherein top officials of the Punjab Small Industries Corporation bought over 181 acres of land in Faisalabad district for an industrial estate. The land, valued at Rs8,000 per acre, was shown to have been purchased by the officials including managing director Naveed Asif, for Rs40,000 per acre and was sold to the PSIC at Rs295,000 per acre. A loss of Rs50 million was thus caused to the corporation.

A case was registered by the Anti-Corruption Establishment, which prosecuted the officials and their attorney in an anti-corruption court. However, when a large number of witnesses had been examined, the accused moved applications for acquittal under Section 249-A of the Criminal Procedure Code pleading that the matter was of civil nature and that the parties had also arrived at a compromise. The court terminated the trial and acquitted the accused in June 1990.

The officials, meanwhile, moved the Lahore High Court for quashment of departmental proceedings against them on the basis of their acquittal. The petition came up before Justice Falak Sher. Taking suo motu notice of the acquittal order, he set it aside and ordered in March 1991 that the trial be duly completed by the anti-corruption court.

One of the accused, attorney Iftikhar Ahmad, challenged the LHC order before the Supreme Court without impleading the PSIC and a three-member bench declared it invalid and restored the anti-corruption court’s acquittal order in December 1998.

All PSIC attempts to have the matter re-examined having failed, Advocate-General Maqbool Ilahi Malik moved a constitutional petition under Article 184(3) of the Constitution and a two-member bench admitted it to expeditious regular hearing.