Mills reiterate claim sugar inquiry commission is illegal

Counsel for sugar mills owners on Wednesday reiterated his claim before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) that the commission of inquiry that probed into January 2020 sugar crisis was constituted in violation of rules and both the commission and its reports should be declared illegal.

 Makhdoom Ali Khan, the counsel for the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA), will resume today (Thursday) his arguments against the sugar inquiry commission before an IHC division bench, comprising Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb.

 The bench is hearing sugar mills’ intra-court appeal (ICA) against an IHC single bench’s order which on June 20 disposed of the PSMA petition challenging constitution of the inquiry commission and its two reports and allowed the government to start a crackdown against sugar barons.

 The sugar inquiry commission – headed by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) chief – was formed to probe into a sudden shortage of sugar that resulted in a steep hike in its prices in January this year.

 In its preliminary report – unveiled on April 5 – the commission had claimed that sugar mills belonging to the families of the country’s top politicians including PML-N’s Shehbaz Sharif, PTI’s Jahangir Tareen and Khusro Bakhtiar, PML-Q’s Moonis Elahi and PPP’s Asif Ali Zardari were among the beneficiaries of the crisis.

 In its forensic report – issued on May 21 – the commission had accused the sugar mill owners of earning illegal profits to the tune of billions of rupees through unjustified price hikes, benami transactions, tax evasion, misuse of subsidy and purchasing sugarcane off the books.

 Presenting his arguments on Wednesday, Makhdoom Ali Khan said the government first formed an ad hoc committee in the wake of the sugar crisis and that committee recommended forming a commission of inquiry to investigate the causes of the crisis.

 He said on recommendation of the ad hoc committee, the government issued a notification to form an inquiry commission on March 16. It issued another notification in this regard on March 25.

 According to the counsel, the government published the notification for inclusion of the seventh member of the commission on July 7 in the official gazette months after the commission completed its investigations and submitted its reports.

 “A commission of inquiry is of no legal worth until and unless its notification is published in the official gazette. Even the publication of a notification in the official gazette is not enough; the gazette is required to be made available to the public,” he said. Khan will continue his arguments today (Thursday).

 The apex court on Tuesday vacated a Sindh High Court (SHC) stay order, allowing the government agencies to take action against sugar barons on basis of the sugar inquiry commission’s reports.

 A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Gulzar Ahmed, issued the order while hearing a federal government appeal filed against the SHC’s interim order which on June 24 restrained authorities from taking action against around 20 sugar mills of Sindh in light of the commission’s reports.

 The Supreme Court bench, however, asked federal authorities not to take any unnecessary coercive action against sugar mills owners. It also directed the SHC and the Islamabad High Court (IHC) benches to decide the sugar mills owners’ petitions against the sugar inquiry commission within three weeks.