ISLAMABAD, 24 June 2006 — Pakistan’s Supreme Court yesterday overturned a government deal to sell state-run Pakistan Steel Mills, the country’s largest steel maker, to a group comprising Russian, Saudi and Pakistani firms, officials said.
The deal is declared “void and of no legal effect,” a nine-member Supreme Court bench ruled after hearing the case for several weeks.
Earlier on May 24 the court had stayed the execution of the $362-million deal under which the state-run privatization commission auctioned a 75-percent stake in Steel Mills to a group led by Russia’s OAO Magnitogorsky.
Pakistan’s Arif Habib Securities Ltd. and Saudi Arabia’s Tuwairqi Steel Mills partnered Magnitogorsky in the bid.
The Steel Mills privatization had triggered a countrywide protest and the deal was challenged in court through petitions filed by Steel Mills’ workers union and others to halt the privatization on the grounds that it was unconstitutional and that the price paid by the consortium was too low.
The deal enraged opposition parties and workers, and the lower house of the Parliament said last month that the steel maker was sold too cheaply.
Privatization of PTCL to UAE-based company Etisalat has been opposed by various political parties but the Government had sliced out NTC (National Telecommunications Corp) before privatizing the PTCL.
