KARACHI: Supreme Court of Pakistan on December 6, 2018 dismissed two Civil Review Petitions filed by Mr. Nasir Ali Shah Bukhari and Ms. Ghazala Monem, seeking Review of the Supreme Court’s earlier Order of August 28, 2018, wherein the Supreme Court upheld the April 17, 2018 judgement of the Sindh High Court, in the matter of regulatory merger of Defunct KASB Bank into BankIslami Pakistan Limited. .
Details of the matter are such that the Defunct KASB Bank was amalgamated with BankIslami by the State Bank of Pakistan on May 7, 2015, with the approval of Ministry of Finance, Government of Pakistan. This merger was challenged in 2015 by the sponsors and certain shareholders of the Defunct KASB Bank through Constitutional Petitions, filed in the Honourable Sindh High Court at Karachi. These Constitutional Petitions were disposed of by the Honourable Sindh High Court on 17th April, 2018, wherein the Honourable Court rejected the request for setting aside the regulatory merger of defunct bank into BankIslami. However, the Honourable Sindh High Court issued directions whereby the valuation of defunt KASB Bank to be looked into again by the State Bank of Pakistan and if any material deviation is found, the shareholders of the defunct Bank would be compensated without any cost and liability to BankIslami.
In accordance thereto, SBP completed the process and then issued an order dated June 28, 2018, disposing of the objections filed by the members of the defunct KASB Bank, with the observation that the objecting members/shareholders had not raised any substantial ground for increase in valuation justifying payment of any compensation to the members/shareholders of the Bank. This order of the SBP has also been referred in the Order dated 28th August, 2018 of the Supreme Court, in Civil Petitions.
It is also important to mention here that certain other shareholders of the defunct KASB Bank had also filed Writ Petitions in the Lahore High Court, which have also been dismissed by the High Court in the month of November, 2018
The subject matter has therefore, has attained finality, in the eyes of law.