Gwadar Port case: SC stays allotment of land to foreign company

Court also accepts Balochistan government’s request against awarding contract of Gwadar Port to a foreign company.

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has issued a stay order against the allotment of land belonging to the Gwadar Port Trust Authority to a foreign company.

In Wednesday’s hearing, the court directed that the land – measuring 600 square kilometres – must not be transferred to the Singapore Port Authority (SPA) until the final verdict of the case.

A three-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, was hearing the case regarding alleged corruption in the allotment of Gwadar Port Trust’s land to SPA. Applicant Barrister Zafarullah had said that Gwadar Port’s land has been allotted to SPA and pleaded that a stay order be issued against the allotment.

Abdul Hafiz Pirzada said that the Balochistan government is not satisfied with the allotment of the contract to SPA. “The contract was awarded without the permission of the Council of Common Interests (CCI), which is a violation of the Constitution,” he said.

The federation’s counsel Ramzan Chaudhary assured the court that neither the land was transferred nor will it be transferred. Hearing was then adjourned for three weeks.

The CJP, while expressing dissatisfaction over the government’s expenditure, observed that the court had tried to retrieve each and every penny from the defaulters but the government has no check on the national exchequer.

The court also accepted the Balochistan government’s request against awarding the contract of Gwadar Port to a foreign company.

The court also expressed annoyance over the government’s hiring of private lawyers to represent it in the case instead of hiring the services of the attorney-general of Pakistan (AGP) and directed the AGP to bring the matter into the prime minister’s notice.

Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday remarked that the national exchequer is the nation’s wealth. “It is strange that every government institution hires the services of private lawyers on the public’s expense, which is not desirable,” he said, adding that in the presence of the AGP, what was the need to hire a private lawyer.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2010.