SC orders auction of mills owned by Sharif’s relatives

NAB raids offices owned by PML-N top leaders; confiscates documents, computers

ISLAMABAD: The apex court has ordered auction of the ‘Brother Sugar Mills’ owned by a close relative of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif for defaulting on billions of rupees payments to farmers and banks.

Last year, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) also initiated an inquiry into allegations that PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif had shares in the mills which has been a defaulter since 2015-16.

In 2016, the Lahore High Court (LHC) ordered the Punjab cane commissioner to seal the mills for defaulting on Rs840 million payments to cane growers. The court also ordered that the sugar stocks worth Rs700 million be paid to the growers.

However, the LHC had not entertained a banks writ petition against the mills for their claims. The total liability of the Brother Sugar Mills is more than Rs5 billion.

The banks subsequently approached the Supreme Court. And a three-judge bench – headed by Justice Maqbool Baqar – on February 12 resumed hearing of a petition seeking a claim against the mills.

According to the written order of the bench – issued on Saturday – Punjab Cane Commissioner Wajid Ali Shah told the bench that since the amount offered by the buyers was below the reserve price of Rs6 billion – according to an earlier exercise – he has undertaken the entire exercise afresh.

The process will culminate on March 3, when the bids are supposed to be furnished/opened, he said.

The bench noted that the Brother Sugar Mills has not made any payment to anyone and “everyone is waiting for the outcome of auction”.

The court asked the cane commissioner to ensure the mill is sold following the procedure as prescribed by law, so that the claimants’ claim may be satisfied in accordance with law. Later, the bench adjourned the hearing till March 4.

Haris Azmat, the counsel for Brother Sugar Mills, believes if the owners are given more time, then they would be able to arrange funds. “Being a commercial lawyer I’m always in favour of saving businesses rather than selling them off,” Haris told The Express Tribune.

It is also in the benefit of the cane growers that the unit is not sold because it is the only buyer of their crops in the area, he added. “If the Brother Sugar mills is sold, then there is every chance that the prices of farmland in the area will drop.”

Punjab Additional Advocate General Chaudhry Faisal Hussain is assisting the court in this case.

NAB raids Sharifs’ offices in Lahore

Also on Saturday, NAB raided the Sharif family’s business offices in Lahore.

The accountability watchdog’s raiding team confiscated various company documents, computer harddrives and laptops. According to NAB’s spokesperson, the offices were used to run benami (anonymous) companies of the Sharif family and were being used to launder money.

PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb confirmed that NAB officials raided 55-K and 91-F offices in Lahore’s Model Town area.

“[Prime Minister] Imran Khan and the tools his government is using in victimising opponents must tell the nation what was recovered in these raids on Sharif family’s private business offices,” she said.

“Such harassment has been going on for the past 18 months,” she added.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who has been diagnosed with a complicated coronary artery disease responsible for a constant drop in his platelet count, is currently under treatment in London.

The Sharif brothers left Pakistan on November 20, 2019 – four days after the LHC directed the federal government to remove Nawaz’s name from the Exit Control List for four weeks.