ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court reserved on Thursday its judgment on a case relating to corruption in Pakistan Steel Mills, which had suffered a whopping loss of Rs26.5 billion in 2008-09 alone.

Although a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Khilji Arif Hussain and Justice Tariq Parvez closed the case, Tuesday’s proceedings seemed to suggest that the court in its final verdict might refer to the National Accountability Bureau all evidence and documents relating to malpractices for penalising the delinquents.

A nine-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, had in August 2006 reversed the sale of Steel Mills, saying that the privatisation process had been carried out in “indecent haste”. It had held that PSM was the most profit-making industrial concern when it was put on sale.

The court had also taken suo motu notice on an article in Dawn on Sept 11, 2009, about the firing of former PSM chairman Moeen Aftab Sheikh without issuing a show cause notice. He was fired by the Establishment Division on the advice of the Prime Minister’s Secretariat because of heavy losses suffered by the mills.

On Thursday, Industries Secretary Gul Muhammad Rind informed the court about his meeting, on Wednesday night, with Industries Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, who had told him that the government would decide about moving further on the corruption issue after seeking an opinion from the Federal Investigation Agency.

The court observed that the government was bound to establish good governance and that based on facts it had complete report on the massive corruption in the mills.

On Tuesday, the court had ordered the industries secretary to come up with an explanation why his ministry had failed to take timely action on a forensic audit report (2008-09) that identified cumulative losses of Rs26.5 billion suffered by PSM in a single year.

The order was issued after the secretary admitted the ministry of industries had received the forensic audit report about six months ago.

The audit report, submitted by PSM’s counsel Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim, suggested that the mills had suffered Rs4.68 billion business losses, Rs9.99 billion because of corrupt practices and Rs11.84 billion due to mismanagement and negligence. It suffered a daily loss of Rs40 million and monthly loss of over Rs1 billion.

Barrister Zafarullah Khan, one of the petitioners in the case, accused the FIA of protecting the interests of “some people who had benefited from the entire saga”. The NAB will itself deal with the matter when the case was referred to it, Justice Khilji observed.