Sharifs challenge verdict against mill relocation

Petition says order tantamount to assuming control of govt policy

ISLAMABAD: The Sharif family has challenged the Lahore High Court’s verdict against relocation of its Ittefaq Sugar Mills from Pakpattan to Bahawalpur district.

A civil petition for leave to appeal (CPLA) has been filed by the mills under Article 185 (3) of the Constitution through Advocate Salman Akram Raja against an LHC division bench’s September 11 judgment that held that relocation of sugar industries in Punjab was illegal. The high court instructed the Sharif family to dismantle the mills within three months.

The petition claims the judgment travelled beyond the mandate of the law and Constitution in ordering removal of civil works and buildings from the property of the family. Removal of civil works could not be ordered by way of punishment, it contended.



“The impugned judgment dated 11-09-2017 has purported to assume control over and to freeze government policy by arriving at factually unfounded conclusion as regards the relative desirability of sugarcane and cotton cultivation in the province of Punjab and the presumed effect of relocation of sugar mills on the cultivation of crops,” says the petition.

It contends that the court has wrongly taken over the right and power vested in the government to determine the question of ‘national interest’ that cannot be adjudged. It presumed that only a particular regional dispersal of sugar mills in existence prior to December 6, 2012 is in the national interest and their relocation will result in adverse consequences for the growth of cotton in Punjab, the petition says. It says that it is for the provincial government to determine the question of national interest by taking into account not just the speculative impact on one or two crops.

Punjab government issued a notification in 2006, banning the setting up of sugar mills.  However, the Sharif family relocated its mills from one district to another. The LHC has declared illegal the relocation notification of December 4, 2015.

The Sharif family submitted that a judge as well as division bench had purported to determine and freeze forever the agricultural, industrial and economic policy of the province over a static perception of national interest. These matters were not within jurisdiction of the judges, it said, alleging that the judges had failed to appreciate that sugarcane needs of the province were determined by the total installed crushing capacity in the sugar mills located in it.



The petition states that there is abundant sugarcane in Sindh, which is readily available in south Punjab and the impact of any relocation of sugar mills to the southern districts on local cultivation is uncertain at best.

It is also claimed that the judgment has usurped the petitioner’s rights under Articles 18 and 151 of the Constitution to carry out business, including production of sugar, at any location of its choice. Questioning the assertion that the relocation was done without an assessment under the Punjab Environmental Protection Act 1997, the petitioner requested the SC to allow the appeal.