An Islamabad High Court (IHC) division bench on Thursday suspended a single bench’s June 28 verdict that set aside appointments of president of the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) Arif Usmani and board of directors (BoD) Chairman, Zubair Soomro.
The order was passed by a two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Aamir Farooq after taking up separate appeals filed by the Ministry of Finance and the NBP challenging the IHC single bench verdict.
On June 28, Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani set aside the appointments of NBP president Arif Usmani and chairman of its board of directors Zubair Soomro.
On June 30, the Ministry of Finance had sought portfolios of four officials within the bank to replace Usmani and Soomro.
It is worth mentioning here that former employees of the bank including Syed Jahangir, Javed Iqbal, Fazal Raheem and Latif Quershi had challenged the appointments of Usmani and Soomro. They contended that the appointments had been made in violation of the constitutional rights that called for equal opportunity for every citizen.
