ISLAMABAD - The Supreme Court of Pakistan
Tuesday appointed advocates
Farogh Naseem, Salman Akram Raja
and Zahid Ibrahim as amici curiae
and issued notices to Pakistan Bar
Council and Balochistan Bar Council (BBC) to assist court in presidential reference on Reko Diq project.
A five-member bench of the apex
court headed by Chief Justice of
Pakistan Justice Umar Ata Bandial
and comprising Justice Ijazul Ahsan,
Justice Muneeb Akhtar, Justice Yahya
Afridi and Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail conducted hearing of the
presidential reference. During the
hearing, Additional Attorney General
(AAG) Aamir Rehman informed the
bench that after the Supreme Court
judgment in 2013 the Balochistan
govt started the Reko Diq development project and spent Rs5 to 6 billion. However, it was abandoned after
the ICSID judgment and money spent
on development gone wasted. The
AAG said that in order to save $10
billion, the federal govt has decided
to share $900 million to pay to Antofogasta, the mining company, which
is not interested in the Reko Diq project. He apprised the court that if Barrick Gold which will invest $4.5 billion on the project after sometimes
find that the project is not feasible
then Pakistan will have nothing.
Rehman argued that the federal
govt is not challenging the apex court
judgment (2013), adding it’s a massive project and in over a 20 years
the foreign company will invest huge