Equal treatment: SC reserves judgment on Kissan package

ISLAMABAD: After three-day-long deliberations, the Supreme Court reserved on Friday its judgment over the federal government’s appeal against the Peshawar High Court’s judgment against the distribution of Rs20 billion in subsidy to selected fertilizer manufacturers under the Kissan package.

The two-judge bench, comprising Justice Ejaz Afzal and Justice Qazi Faez Isa, observed that there should have been no discrimination in the distribution of subsidy, given from public taxes, to fertilizer manufacturers.

The federal government in October last year had announced the subsidy to farmers on the purchase of fertilizer.

Agritech Limited, a local manufacturer of Single Super Phosphate based in Haripur of district Hazara in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa had challenged the government’s action, terming it discriminatory. The PHC had ruled in favour of the local company.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2016.