The Supreme Court on Wednesday termed the contract awarded to Jamshoro Joint Venture Limited (JJVL) by Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) non-transparent and illegal and declared it null and void.
A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and comprising Justice Jawwad S Khawaja and Justice Gulzar Ahmed gave the ruling after hearing arguments in the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) quota case.
While announcing the verdict, which was reserved on October 22, the apex court said that the SSGC-JJVL contract would be considered void from the date it was awarded – May 18, 2003.
The court order further said that the agreement relating to royalty payments was changed to give benefits to JJVL. The apex court ordered the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to take action against those responsible in the scam.
In its orders, the court declared the LPG quota deal as ‘non-transparent’ and cancelled agreement between the two groups. The SC ordered that all losses should be recovered.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Khawaja Asif had filed a petition against the auction of the LPG quota when he was in the opposition during the Pakistan People’s Party-led coalition government. The petitioner submitted that the auction of the LPG quota was not conducted in a transparent manner and had prayed for its annulment. He said that political figures and establishment’s bigwigs were involved in the deal of allotment of quota, inflicting a loss of billions of rupees to the national exchequer.