The Supreme Court today issued status quo on transfer of Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited's shares to China's Sinohydro Corporation Limited in Dhaka Elevated Expressway till May 30.

The Appellate Division of the SC also asked the Italian-Thai company to file a leave to appeal petition with the court against the High Court verdict on the issue by the same date.

A full bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Obaidul Hassan passed the order during hearing of a petition filed by the Italian-Thai company that challenged a High Court verdict.

The chief justice said the interest of the country, not any individual or bank, is the top priority to this court.

So, this court will pass an order after scrutinising the judgement of the HC on this issue, he said.

On May 12, the HC lifted its order of status quo on the transfer of the Italian-Thai company's shares in Dhaka Elevated Expressway to China's Sinohydro Corporation Limited.

The Chinese company's lawyer Mohammad Mehedi Hassan Chowdhury today told The Daily Star that the shares of Italian-Thai company cannot be transferred to Chinese company following the SC order to status quo.

He said his client will not finance in the construction of Dhaka Elevated Expressway until the shares of Italian-Thai company are transferred to Chinese Siohydro Company limited.

Contacted, Imtiaz Farooq, the lawyer for Italian-Thai company, said his client will file a leave to appeal petition with the apex court challenging the High Court order that recently lifted its order of status quo on the transfer of Italian-Thai company's shares in Dhaka Elevated Expressway to China's Sinohydro Corporation Limited.

With the shareholders legal fighting at court, construction works of the country's important project to reduce traffic congestion remained almost halted.

The project was taken in 2009 and the construction work was inaugurated by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in April 2011.

In 2011, Bangladesh Bridge Authority signed a deal with the Italian-Thai company to build the expressway at a cost of Tk 8,703 crore. The deal was revised and inked again in 2013, with the cost revised at Tk 8,940 crore after bringing several changes to the design. 

The scheme faltered time and again over the years, as the private investor -- Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited -- failed to manage funds for the project and problems related to land acquisition, said officials involved in the project.

The company later sold their 49 percent of shares of First Dhaka Elevated Expressway Company Ltd, which it formed to construct and manage the expressway, to two Chinese companies -- China's Shandong International Economic and Technical Cooperation Group and Sinohydro Corporation Limited. The shares of the three companies are 51, 34 and 15 percent respectively.

After that, the official construction work started on January 1, 2020 by gradually extending the time. The project was supposed to be completed within three and a half years. But because of Italian-Thai company's failure to pay back the interest on the bank loan, the bank withheld its loan and asked it to hand over their shares as per the terms. The Italian-Thai company filed an arbitration case in Singapore against the bank's decision. 

The company then applied to the HC seeking an injunction against the transfer of shares under 7A of the Arbitration Act 2001 as the arbitration case was pending in Singapore. In continuation of the legal procedures, the HC on May 12 rejected the company's petition and lifted its previous order of status quo against which it moved a petition before the Appellate Division.