The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the owners of three sugar mills relocated following an amendment in the prevailing laws from central Punjab to the southern region in 2015 to make the mills operational at their original locations in two months.
All three mills — Ittefaq Sugar Mills, Chaudhry Sugar Mills and Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills – are owned by members of the Sharif family. These mills were relocated after an amendment in a 2006 notification that had banned the establishment of new sugar mills and the expansion and relocation of the existing ones in the province.
In 2016, former PTI secretary general Jahangir Tareen had challenged the relocation of mills before the Lahore High Court which declared the relocation illegal in its ruling issued last year.
The LHC was challenged by the mill owners in the top court, where it was heard by a bench headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar. Earlier this year, the bench had allowed to mills to operate at the new locations for the duration of the cane crushing season. On Thursday, in a short order, the bench remarked that the season was now over so the mills should be moved back to their original locations in two months.
The top court directed that the buildings of the mills, which will be vacated after the relocation, should not be demolished, and instead, these should be put to some other use.
Published in Daily Times, September 14th 2018.
