LAHORE: A division bench of the Lahore High Court ordered three relevant sessions judges to seal Chaudhry Sugar Mills, Ittefaq Sugar Mills and Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills if they were still operating despite a restraining order of the Supreme Court.
The mills belong to the ruling Sharifs.
The bench also directed police to accompany the sessions judges and render them full support in carrying out the inspection of these mills. The bench ordered that if these mills were still operational they would immediately be sealed.
The bench in its written order said, “We wanted to be fully satisfied that the order of the SC was being implemented in letter and spirit. In order to verify the ground position, we depute the following learned District & Sessions Judges to immediately verify whether the under mentioned mills are in operation.”
The bench deputed district and session judges of Rahim Yar Khan, Bahawalpur and Multan, directing them to keep in mind that the restraining order issued by the SC, which was to take its effect from February 12, was being implemented. In case the judges find that the mills are still in operation they will immediately seal the manufacturing process of the mills.
The bench directed that senior-most officers of the Punjab Industries Department in the above districts should accompany the judges and render full assistance regarding the technical aspects of the inspection/verification.
The bench also directed the judges to submit their compliance reports within three days, duly co-signed by the DPO/representative of the industries department and the representative of the mills management.
The Supreme Court on February 9 while remanding the case to the LHC on application of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf General Secretary Jahangir Tareen had ordered to suspend operation of these mills.
The bench also held that the case would be heard daily from February 20.
During the hearing on Tuesday, petitioner’s counsel Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan pointed out that restraining order of the SC was not being complied with. He said that the administration of all three-sugar mills had made these mills operational and carrying out manufacturing activities.
He submitted that media was also reporting this fact that the court order was not implemented.
Tareen in his petitions had alleged that the Sharifs wanted to establish new mills under the garb of shifting their old mills which was illegal and banned under the relevant policy.
On October 28, a division bench of LHC maintained the status quo in the matter of shifting five sugar mills owned by Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif.
A single bench headed by Justice Ayesha A Malik on October 10 had declared as illegal the relocation of Chaudhry Sugar Mills, Ittefaq Sugar Mills in Sahiwal, Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills in Nankana Sahib, Abdullah (Yousaf) Sugar Mills in Sargodha and Abdullah Sugar Mills in Depalpur to other districts.
Earlier, the petitioner’s counsel had said that the secretary industries issued the impugned notifications on December 4, 2015, with mala fide intention to facilitate the desired relocation of the four mills. He said under Section 3 of Punjab Industries (Control on Establishment and Enlargement) Ordinance, there was a restriction on the establishment of industrial undertaking without the provincial government’s permission.
He submitted that under this section, various notifications had been issued imposing a restriction on establishing new sugar mills in the province. He pleaded that it was the government’s consistent position that relocation amounts to establishing of a new industrial undertaking.
