Most of the appeals listed before the five Supreme Court benches here during next judicial week relate to taxes or dispute settlement made during the Golden Handshake retirement deals. The week starts from Monday. The retirement cases are about the employees of the Utility Stores Corporation and have been listed for hearing before the first bench headed by Chief Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui. The appeal preferred by the Corporation against the decision of the Federal Service Tribunal total to 132.
Similarly, the enterprises in the Hattar and Gadoon industrial estates are once again in the judicial frame as most of those have approached the nation's last court of appeals complaining breach of commitments by the authorities.
This time they are seeking the enforcement of promise of reduced power rates for a certain duration. They claim that they were promised reduction up to 50 per cent in the electricity charges. The amount involved runs into millions.
Then are the petitions of the former employees of the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation before the same bench.
Two private power companies that had contracted to build electric powerhouses are in the field to save their performance bonds of numerous millions of rupees. They are Spencer Powergen Company partnered by Behram Oavari, the well-known hotelier and the textile giants, Rupali Polyester Limited.
In the case of former the Sindh High Court had approved the recall of Powergen's performance bond for what the Private Power Infrastructure Board had called its failure to complete the project in time but in the latter it is the PPIB that is appealing against the decision of the Lahore High Court that favoured Rupali. Because of similarity of grounds, the two appeals have been clubbed together for future hearings. The case was partly heard in April last and is now listed for Wednesday.
Another case of similar nature is of Tri-Star Energy Limited that is appealing against the High Court's decision on its specific performance. Since Chief Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui as well as Justice Deedar Hussain Shah had sat on the Sindh High Court Bench in this case, the appeal will be heard by the second bench that is headed by Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Tuesday.
Then also before the first bench is the petition of Middle East Finance Trading of Pakistan, a company that had imported 123 French made small yellow cabs but before it could delivery the scheme was scrapped by Benazir Bhutto's government and the Peugeot manufacturers re-directed the shipment to Malta. But the MEFTP is suing the United Bank through which it had opened a back-to-back letter of credit on a French bank.
The petitioner is seeking compensation for nearly Rs 190 million for onward payment to his creditors and also investors.
The five benches appointed by the Chief Justice for the week are:
1. FIRST BENCH: Chief Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui, Justice Javed Iqbal and Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar.
2. SECOND BENCH: Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Rana Baghwandas, Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan.
3. THIRD BENCH: Justice Syed Deedar Hussain Shah, Justice Khalil-ur-Rahman Ramday and Justice Falak Sher.
4. FOURTH BENCH: Justice Hamid Ali Mirza, Justice Muhammad Nawaz Abbasi and Justice Faqir Muhammad Khokhar.
5. FIFTH BENCH: Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza Khan, Justice Javed Buttar and Justice Tassadaq Hussain Jilani. (The latter will sit from Wednesday).
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