LAHORE: A division bench of the Lahore High Court on Monday dismissed an inter-court appeal moved on behalf of the Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills in Muzaffargarh, Ittefaq Sugar Mills in Bahawalpur and Chaudhry Sugar Mills in Rahim Yar Khan believed to be owned by the Sharif family challenging ban on relocation of these mills.
The bench comprising Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Shujaat Ali Khan ordered the owners to bring back their mills to their original status/place within three months of passing of this judgement.
The bench directed the owners to dismantle and remove their plants and machinery from the present location and restore and restitute the original position as it stood on the day when the first stay order was passed in their case.
The bench also ordered the provincial government to submit progress report on the administrative side. In case of non-compliance, the case will be put up before the court for appropriate orders, the ruling said.
The bench held that that shifting/re-location of the three sugar mills from Central Punjab to Southern Punjab was in violation of Punjab Industries (Control on Establishment and Enlargement) Ordinance 1963, as well as the ban notification. The bench held that the relocation was not different from establishment of a new sugar mills while the relocation notification is ultra vires of the ordinance.
“In this background, the very initiation of the relocation policy by the government is diametrically opposed to the scheme of the ordinance, and, therefore, bad in law and hopelessly misconceived. As a result, the entire process adopted by the government leading to the relocation notification comes to naught and passes for malice-in-law,” the bench held, adding the owners not only established their sugar mills by relying on a wholly misconceived and self-styled interpretation of the ban and section 3 of the ordinance, they also, with contemptuous obstinacy, disregarded the restraining orders of the court.
The bench clarified that in future if any sugar mills wished to relocate or shift from one local area to another in Punjab, it could move an application under section 3, if there is no ban on the establishment of a new sugar mills.
Published in Daily Times, September 12th 2017.
