Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday observed that influential people were roaming about freely while a canteen contractor of the PSM was arrested for overcharging. He also questioned as to why five of the accused had succeeded in obtaining protective bail. Saqi replied that Sindh High Court had granted them bail and he had moved an application for an early hearing of the case.
Justice Ramday observed that whenever Court orders any competent official to conduct an inquiry, the decision is resisted. If any department fears the Supreme Court, then why does it indulge in dishonest deeds, he added. Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had taken suo motu notice of a repeated Rs 22 billion loss to PSM following the publication of an article penned by Dr Ayesha Siddiqa in September 2009. In her article, Dr Siddiqa had mentioned five "main" beneficiaries of the new sale policy namely Metropolitan, Amreli, Abbas Engineering reportedly controlled by Riaz Laljee, Al-Abbas Steel and Abbas Steel.
The court, however, ordered the officials of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) not to misuse authority given by the court for investigation of the scam while directing the agency to investigate the matter fairly and without harassing anyone.
Headed by the Chief Justice, a three-member bench passed the orders on the application of Ambrali Steel, four accused directors of the PSM and Rashid Abro, an accused agent, that the real cuprites were roaming freely while innocent people had been arrested by the FIA. The applicants urged the court to replace the investigation agency with some other. Abid Saqi, at the outset of the proceedings, submitted a progress report and said so far fourteen accused had been arrested in connection with illegal gains, corruption and for causing loss to the PSM.
He said their accounts had been frozen while their properties had also been attached. Moreover, cases have been lodged against forty companies, according to him. Reminders had been sent to Interpol to identify bank accounts and any other transferable or non-transferable assets of the accused in foreign countries such as China, Malaysia and Hong Kong, he said.
To a bench's query, he stated that according to estimates Rs 8 billion losses were detected that led to ten criminal cases while the exact identification of other losses would be made on the findings of the committee comprising PSM management and representatives of dealers.
Khalid Anwar, the counsel for Ambrali steel, contended that the real culprits were roaming freely while the innocent people had been harassed by the FIA after a change in FIA hierarchy and PSM management. He requested the bench to issue directives to replace FIA with any other agency to conduct investigation.
"Why have they chosen ten to twenty companies as their target?" Khalid Anwer questioned, adding that the apex court's orders were misused with mala fide intentions. He stated that the closure of as many as forty companies would mean a huge loss to national economy.
The Chief Justice observed that the court would guard the interests of every individual under Article 9 of the Constitution. "Our objective is to recover the looted money which belongs to every citizen of this country," he added. Director FIA Mauzam Jan apprised the bench that his agency was not involved in estimating the losses but they had permitted PSM management and dealers to hold a meeting and make an assessment. He said they had arrested Rashid Abro, a local agent who charged $1 on export of each ton of commodity as commission from foreign companies.
The bench also rejected Rashid Abro's bail request pleaded by his counsel Raja Qureshi. Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, counsel for four PSM directors, said that a charge-sheet against his clients had already been filed with competent court and he was ready to face the charges. The court adjourned the hearing of the case for four weeks.