By Our Correspondent
ISLAMABAD: The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SECP) Appellate Bench, an apex quasi-judicial Appellate forum, has managed 314 cases till date during the year 2024. Out of these, 122 Appeals/Review were disposed of and the remaining cases were adjourned due to the Appellants’ absence.
The cases decided by the Appellate Bench during the period, were related to the regulatory and statutory violations. Major violations pertained to areas such as, issue of capital, anti-money laundering, insurance, annual general meeting, Illegal Deposit Taking, Disqualification of Directors, the appointment of independent directors, statutory filing of accounts and Employees’ provident funds, among others.
In comparison, the Appellate Bench Registry fixed 125 Appeals from January 1, 2023, to December 31, 2023. During previous year, 89 Appeals/Review were disposed of whereas, the remaining cases were adjourned on the Appellants’ request.
During recent times, there has been a strong focus towards clearing the outstanding appeals. As a result, backlog of Appeals from year 2011 to 2016 has already been cleared. The next milestone is to dispose of all pending Appeals filed during 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Filing of Appeals before the Appellate Bench is a continuous and ongoing process and in addition to backlog of Appeals, since January 1, 2023 to date, 192 new Appeals have also been filed with the Appellate Bench. Currently, 426 Appeal/Review are pending adjudication before the Appellate Bench.
The Chairman SECP has directed the Appellate Bench Registry to issue a hearing roster/cause list for appeals to be fixed before the Appellate Bench in the next two months i.e. January and February 2025. Through this measure, chances of adjournments by the parties on account of non-availability of Counsels/authorized representatives will be reduced. In this exercise around 150 appeals will be heard and disposed of by the Appellate Bench in two months.
Islamabad High Court, Lahore High Court and High Court of Sindh have heard and decided Appeals under Section 34 of the SECP Act, 1997 filed against the order passed by the Appellate Bench. Since January 1, 2023, the Lahore High Court decided eleven (11) Appeals and all were dismissed, whereas, Islamabad High Court dismissed nine out of ten (10) Appeals. Moreover, the Sindh High Court disposed of three (3) Appeals during the period.
All the orders passed by the Appellate Bench are placed on the SECP’s website without any delay. In addition, 29 important and key decisions of the Appellate Bench are also published in Corporate Law Decisions (CLD) published by Pakistan Law Decisions (PLD).
