Supreme Court Halts Sindh Bank’s Merger With Summit Bank

The merger of Summit and Sindh Bank has come to halt after Chief Justice Supreme Court took a suo moto notice on the matter. A larger bench of Supreme Court held its proceeding at Karachi register. Chief Justice of Supreme Court, Justice Saqib Nisar, started a hearing on the suo moto notice of the merger between Sindh Bank into the Summit Bank. In his order, Justice Saqib Nasir halted the merger and issued a notice to Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to present balance sheets of both banks. ALSO READ Sindh Bank and Summit Bank Merger Approved By Cabinet Without permission of the supreme judiciary, the merger of the two banks will not be allowed,  CJ remarked. Neither any officials from the two banks nor anyone from the SBP were present in the courtroom. It is worth mentioning here that Sindh Bank is owned by the provincial government of Sindh. The bank’s balance sheet of nine months shows a profit of Rs 1.869 billion. Its balance sheet also shows that the total deposits increased by 9.2 percent to Rs. 130 billion as compared to Rs 119 billion in December 2016. The bank maintained 15 percent deposits of Government of Sindh’s Finance department as well. ALSO READ Summit Bank Reports Huge Losses in 2017 On the other hand, Summit Bank continued to show losses on its balance sheet since its inception. The bank posted a loss of Rs. 427 million in the nine months of 2017. The proposed merger of the two banks aimed at consolidation of the two banks with the amalgamation of their assets, branches network, human resources, and customers.