LAHORE: The Lahore High Court quashed on Friday a reference filed against Ittefaq Foundry.

According to a press release of the Ittefag Foundry, the reference was lodged during the Musharraf regime regarding non-payment of loans.

The reference involved four steels mills Ittefaq Foundry, Ittefaq Brothers, Ilyas Enterprises and Brothers Steel which were accused of non-payment of the original amount of the Rs970 million loan and cases were referred to the accountability court.

The reference was investigated on Feb 14, 2000. It was lodged on the same date under the signatures of then chairman of the National Accountability Bureau when summons were issued by the court. `The haste with which the whole 3,000-page long reference was processed and lodged in a single day bespeaks...mala fide intentions,` the press release said.

The reference did not mention the cases lodged by the Ittefaq Foundry against some banks, neither did it mention those cases which were filed by the banks for recovery from Ittefaq Foundry.

`As a matter of fact it happened for the first time in the history of the country that the borrower himself voluntarily surrendered his assets to banl(s in 1998, and later paid back all principal amounts with markup and cost of funds without any concession or write-off. Therefore, the question of default did not arise at all.

On the basis of these legal grounds, the LHC quashed the reference filed against the Ittefaq Foundry.