ISLAMABAD, May 24: The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked the handing over of Pakistan Steel Mills to new buyers till the middle of June.

A nine-member larger bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, is hearing a petition challenging the recent privatisation of the country’s largest industrial concern by Barrister Zafarullah, chairman of the Watan Party.

The apex court directed the Steel Mill’s Chairman Lt-Gen (retd) Abdul Qayyum to ensure the unit’s smooth functioning but halted all privatisation activities at the mills.

The court warned the respondents — the federal government, Privatisation Commission chairman, PSM chairman, Arif Habib Group of Pakistan, Al Tuwairqi Group of Saudi Arabia and Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works of Russia – that they would lose legal rights if they went ahead.

The bench also said that it would grant no further adjournments and the hearing would resume on May 30.

Sharifuddin Pirzada represented the Privatisation Commission. Khalid Anwar is the counsel for the bidders and Wasim Sajjad represents the PSM chairman.

When the apex court asked the PSM chairman if he had expressed any apprehension about the mill’s privatisation, he said that he had not, although he had forwarded criticism of the process to President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

But on court’s insistence, he conceded that he had written letters to the president and the prime minister regarding the privatisation but said these were privileged documents.

“Nothing is privileged or confidential for courts,” the chief justice observed and ordered him to produce the same before the court for which arrangements could be made for in-camera hearing.

The chief justice also observed that of the total privatisation proceeds, cheques worth Rs7.7 billion had been issued to pay off the mill’s liabilities. At the end of the day, the Privatisation Commission would hardly get Rs12 billion for the mills when even the value of 14,500 acres of land was worth Rs40 billion, as had been suggested by the PSM’s comprehensive reply that was submitted earlier by Kamaluddin Azfar, the chief justice observed.

Wasim Sajjad argued that an industrial concern was always sold as a unit and the price of land was irrelevant since no housing society was to be built on it.

Khalid Anwar argued that the new buyer intended to invest $3 billion to triple the PSM’s performance and said a profit of Rs1.1 billion shown by the mills during 2004-05 was “temporary” because of a sudden increase in billet prices in the international market.

At the outset, the bench also admonished the respondents for not providing their replies and for their failure to exchange pleadings.