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New SC bench to take up FCAscase tomorrow

RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: A new bench of three judges of the Supreme Court will take up the Foreign Currency Accounts case here on Monday when the Federal Law Minister Aziz A Munshi is expected to reveal the latest government plan to resolve the problem.

The bench, now headed by the new Chief Justice Irshad Hassan Khan includes Justice Chaudhary Mohammad Arif and Qazi Mohammad Farooq Pasha. Previously, the case was heard by a bench headed by former chief justice Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui and had included Justice Arif who is on the new bench also.

At the last hearing on January 17, the federal law minister, who is also the Attorney General, had requested for a three weeks time from the Court to finalise with his Cabinet colleagues his proposal for the solution to the impasse.

The case pertains to the freezing of the foreign currency accounts held by resident and non-resident Pakistanis in the year of carrying out nuclear tests. The action of Nawaz Sharif administration was later questioned in the Supreme Court through a number of petitions by the investors, most of them residing abroad.

In June last year a special bench headed by the then chief justice Ajmal Mian issued directions to the Federal Government but those were found to be wanting by Syed Nurul Huda Chaudhary of London. Through a review petition, Chaudhary had complained that his bank was not paying him interest on his deposit of $1.5 million and had thus violated the Supreme Court's order.

In the hearings before the new Bench the issue had been joined by the foreign and local banks also saying that the cost of maintaining the foreign currency accounts had multiplied due to rising differential between the value of the dollar and the Pak rupee. One bank had suggested that they should be allowed to refund the amounts in rupees and the investors should be allowed to buy the foreign currency from open market and export it.