Sindh High Court (SHC) has accepted for regular hearing a defamation suit of Rs200 million against Pakistan Steel Mills filed by proprietor of Reliable Hospital Supply Kausar Perveen. While admitting the plea for regular hearing, SHC issued summon notices to the management of Pakistan Steel Mill (PSM) including Chief Executive Officer (CEO) PSM and others, directing them to submit their replies till August 4, 2015. The Court has fixed August 4, 2015, 9:30am as the date for hearing of the case.
According to a copy of court notice available with Business Recorder, "You are hereby summoned to appear in this court before Additional Registrar (OS) in person, or by pleader instructed, and able to answer all material questions relating to the suit or who shall be accompanied by some person able to answer all such questions on 4th day of August 2015 at 09:30am to answer the claim".
The SHC further directed the defendants to produce all the documents in support of their defence and file written statements on or before the date of hearing.
According to the lawsuit No 762 of 2015, the plaintiff Mst. Kausar Parveen approached the court against "baseless allegations" by PSM management which caused financial loss, bad reputation in the market, etc.
M/S Reliable Hospital Supply is supplying medicines and other hospital items to PSM after successful bidding in annual tenders from 2009-2014.
The bills for April - May 2014 were hold by PSM and alleged an overbilling of Rs 3,70,80,000/-. PSM CEO formed an eight- members committee of PSM senior officials to enquire the matter on plaintiff's request.
The PSM committee after enquiring the matter exonerated the Plaintiff from the false charges and found that only an amount of Rs 1,45,000/- may be deducted from April - May 2014 bills.
The plaintiff took the stand that the accusations were mala fide and were made to damage her company's reputation, already proven through PSM internal committee.