Pakistan: Lahore HC admits plea against PIA's privatisation

RAWALPINDI: The Lahore High Court's (LHC) Rawalpindi bench on Friday admitted a petition challenging the privatisation process of Pakistan International Airlines and asked the top law officer to respond to the questions raised in the plea, Dawn reported.

Justice Jawad Hassan issued the order on Friday on a pro bono petition filed against the procedure adopted to privatise PIA. Hassan also expressed his intention to examine the law introduced by the previous caretaker government to set up an appellate tribunal for privatisation disputes.

The petition said that the caretaker government put the airline up for sale without properly evaluating its foreign and local assets as required under the Privatisation Commission Ordinance, 2000. The petitioner said that the requirements in Section 23 of the Privatisation Commission Ordinance, 2000 were not met.

When the judge questioned the petitioner's counsel over the plea's maintainability, he argued that while proceeding with the privatisation process, principles settled by the Supreme Court were ignored, adding that the bench could take up this case.

As per Dawn's report, Justice Hassan recalled a judgement authored by Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah in a case titled 'Arshad Waheed versus Province of Punjab and others' where he detailed the High Court's powers in such matters.

According to Justice Hassan under Article 199 (jurisdiction of the high court) of the Constitution, the high court is empowered to examine administrative actions from the touchstone of violation of law and breach of the Constitution. He, however, added that the power of judicial review is regulated by the principle of judicial restraint. "[J]udicial restraint encourages the judges to exercise their powers with restraint and wisdom and to limit the exercise of their own powers to intervene in the matters relating to [the] policy of the Statutory Bodies/Board having financial perspective and outcome and exercise," he said.

The petitioner's counsel argued that his client is only challenging PIA's privatisation process because the mandatory requirement of advertisement, as given in Section 23 (advertisement of privatisation) of the Privatisation Commission Ordinance, 2000, has not been fulfilled, Dawn reported.