The federal government has asked the Supreme Court to transfer the dam fund to the public account.
A case related to advertisement published by UBL and HBL for raising of funds for Diamar Bhasha and Mohmand Dam was heard by a four-member bench of the Supreme Court headed by the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Qazi Faez Isa. The bench included Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan, Justice Irfan Saadat and Justice Shahid Bilal.
During the hearing, Additional Attorney General Aamir Rehman said, “We have filed a miscellaneous application seeking the release of the money of dams funds from the account that was opened by the State Bank under the supervision of the Supreme Court.” He argued that under law, money received by or deposited with the Supreme Court or any other court established under the authority of the federation shall be credited to the Public Account of the federation. Thus, this amount should be transferred to the federal government and WAPDA (Water and Power Development Authority).
Chief Justice Qazi Faiz Isa inquired how much money is in dams funds, to which lawyer WAPDA Saad Rasool said that total money collected are Rs18.64 billion, out of that Rs9.56 billion were generated locally, while overseas Pakistanis contributed Rs1.9 billion, and profit earned on it is Rs7.1 billion.
Chief Justice also inquired about how the case was initiated.
The lawyer replied that the fund was initiated in 2018 following a suo motu notice taken by the then Chief Justice Saqib Nisar for the dams’ construction.
The lawyer also said that Supreme Court’s implementation bench had held 17 hearings on the matter, and the progress reports on dams’ construction had been submitted in all of them.
The Chief Justice asked as to why was this done because the main authorities responsible for the construction of dams are either Parliament or federal government.
He told the court that this was done as per the order of the Supreme Court and the undertaking of WAPDA chairman.
The Chief Justice of Pakistan asked WAPDA’s lawyer that there will be many other projects of WAPDA, does the Supreme Court supervise every project of WAPDA?
The counsel then told the court that there were disputes between the private parties on the issue of dam construction. Thus the top court assigned the case to itself to hear the disputes of the private parties instead of the relevant courts.
However, WAPDA’s lawyer requested that the disputes of all the private parties be referred to the relevant courts.
Chief Justice wrote in the court order that in this case they will decide that the amount of dams funds should be kept in the account of the Supreme Court or not? Where is the power of the execution bench written in the constitution to decide the case?
The Supreme Court has no power to enforce its order.
The case was adjourned for three weeks. Additionally, the court remarked that it is appropriate to call former Attorney General Khalid Javed and Anwar Mansoor for Supreme Court’s assistance.
