Formation of consortium not allowed after bidders' pre-qualification: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Thursday has observed that formation of consortium is not allowed after pre-qualification of the bidding parties under the Privatisation Ordinance 2000.
The Court gave this observation during the hearing of the petitions against the privatisation of Pakistan Steel Mills, Karachi where the nine pre-qualified parties were allowed to form consortiums, resultantly the Privatisation Commission received only two sealed bids for the purchase of 75 percent shares of Pakistan's biggest steel mills, which were opened on March 31, 2006 and the sale deal was approved.
Continuing his daylong arguments, the counsel for the Federation, Abdul Hafeez Pirzada said that the PSM privatisation was carried out in accordance with law and the entire process was open and transparent.
He said that after opening of the bids in a nation-wide televised ceremony, the parties were allowed to take part in the open bid/auction and the price of the share went up from Rs 11.10 per share to Rs 16.80 in eight stages and the offer of the highest bidder was accepted after three to four hour process.
The Court made several observations with regard to the technique of evaluation of the assets, determination of the share price of the mill, terms of reference (TOR) of the Financial Adviser (FA), the bidding process and certain approvals obtained from the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation even before the actual bidding, which impacted transparency of the sell off process.
Counsel for the Federation promised to submit his replies to the queries raised by the apex court and would try to satisfy the court that the entire process of privatisation was in the best interest of the nation.
Since Abdul Hafeez Pirzada could not complete his arguments on Thursday, and Attorney General Mohammad Makhdoom Ali Khan, the counsel for the respondents, the Privatisation Commission Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, PSM, Waseem Sajjad, consortium of successful bidders, Khalid Anwar and the petitioners counsel, Barrister Zafarullah Khan and Abdul Mujib Pirzada will make their submissions with regard to points raised during the past three weeks exhaustive hearings, the court decided to continue the hearing next week starting from Monday. Earlier, the court had indicated to complete the hearing on Friday.
The bench comprises Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Rana Bhagwandas, Justice Javed Iqbal, Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, Justice Mohammad Nawaz Abbasi, Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jilani, Justice Sayed Saeed Arshad, Justice Hamid Ali Mirza and Justice Karamat Nazir Bhandari.