International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Bank Act , 1950

This 1950 act gives legal effect in Pakistan to the country's obligations under the Bretton Woods agreements establishing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank). Section 2 authorises payments out of federal government revenues to cover Pakistan's subscriptions, charges, and other sums owed to the Fund and the Bank under the relevant Articles of Agreement, and lets the government issue non-interest-bearing notes to these institutions instead of cash where the agreements allow it.

Section 3 designates the State Bank of Pakistan as the official depository for the Fund's and Bank's holdings of Pakistani currency. Section 4 lets the government or the State Bank require any person to furnish information needed to satisfy an IMF information request; anyone required to supply such information is treated as a public servant under the Pakistan Penal Code, and the information cannot be passed on to the IMF in a way that discloses an individual's private affairs. Prosecuting someone for failing to supply this information requires the federal government's prior sanction.

Section 5 is the operative core of the act: it gives the force of law in Pakistan to the specific provisions of the Fund and Bank Agreements reproduced in the Schedule, covering matters such as the unenforceability of currency-control-violating exchange contracts, and the legal status, immunities, and privileges of the Fund and Bank — including immunity from judicial process, protection of their property and archives from seizure, and immunity from taxation for the institutions, their assets, and (for non-local staff) their officers' salaries. Section 5A extends this tax immunity specifically to special drawing rights.

This is an old act from 1950 that has been amended multiple times, including by a 1959 Ordinance, a 1969 Ordinance, a 1975 Presidential Order, a 1977 Ordinance, and a 1981 Revision and Declaration Ordinance (which omitted the original Sections 6 and 7). Readers should treat the current wording, especially any figures or institutional names, as subject to verification against the up-to-date official text.