As per reports in local media amid oppositions demand for resignation of Prime Minster Mr Shaukat Aziz on the verdict of Supreme Court on Pakistan Steel Mill’s privatization, Pakistan government denied any wrongdoing in the sale and pointed to the option of seeking a review of the Supreme Court ruling that annulled the deal.

On the third day of a National Assembly debate on the scrapped deal, Information Technology and Communications Minister Mr Awais Ahmed Leghari, who was minister in charge of privatization at the time of the PSM deal in March, said that prime minister had acted in accordance with the privatization law and that we have the right to ask the judiciary for a review of the judgment. Mr Leghari later told reporters that his remarks did not mean the government had decided to apply for a review but only referred to the option that could be exercised by any party within one month of the issuance of the detailed judgment, which was done a week ago.

Mr Shah Mahmud Qureshi of the People’s Party Parliamentarians urged the prime minister to own his responsibility as a gentleman in the PSM sale as head of the Cabinet Committee on Privatization (CCOP) and resign forthwith and called for setting up a commission to investigate the privatization. Mr Qureshi said the PSM sale had negated the government’s own claims of transparency, accountability and good governance and said even the Council of Common Interests, reconstituted on the Supreme Court’s directive, violated the court ruling by approving 28 already completed and 10 new privatizations. He said the PSM issue should have come to a joint sitting of the parliament after North West Frontier Province Chief Minister Mr Akram Khan Durrani had differed with the CCI’s majority decision to offer the PSM for sale again.