The Supreme Court Thursday suspended the judgement of Sindh High Court about winding up of the Malaysian power sector company, Sabah Shipyard (Pakistan) Ltd and remanded the case to SHC. The company had signed an agreement with the government of Pakistan in 1995 for setting up a 288MW power plant in Korangi at a cost of 300 million dollars.
However, the government cancelled the contract of the company in 1966 on the plea that it failed to start the project within the stipulated period and the company filed a suit in the London Court for payment of 7 million dollars.
The Private Power Infrastructure Board PPIB filed a petition in the Sindh High Court for winding up of the Sabah Shipyard (Pakistan) Ltd as it was non-functional.
The Sindh High Court decided the case in favour of the PPIB on 18th August 2007 against which the Malaysian company filed an appeal in the Supreme Court. The appeal came up for hearing on Thursday before a four member bench headed by CJ Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.
After hearing the two sides, the court observed that the Sindh High Court had not decided whether the Managing Director PPIB was authorised to initiate the proceedings for winding up the company in Pakistan.
The court suspended the impugned order of the High Court and remanded the case with the instructions that the Judge (Companies) of the SHC should first decide this issue. Abudul Hafeez Lakho represented the appellants while Munawar Akhtar appeared for the respondents.