Relocation of sugar mills: SC dismisses Sharif family review petitions

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday dismissed review petitions filed by Sharif family against its verdict, ordering repatriation of its sugar mills from Southern Punjab to its previous places.

A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed heard the review petitions filed by Sharif family against its judgment.

Last year in September, a three-member bench of the apex court headed by former chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar had ordered the repatriation of sugar mills, owned by Sharif family from Southern Punjab to its previous place as well as shifting of its machinery within two months.

The sugar mills was relocated from central Punjab to the southern region of the province after the former provincial government amended a 2006 notification — that banned the establishment of new sugar mills and the expansion and relocation of the existing ones — in 2015.

The bench had dismissed appeals, filed by management of Itefaq, Haseeb Waqas and Chaudhry sugar mills, owned by Sharif family, challenging the verdict of the learned LHC, declaring relocation of sugar mills to Southern Punjab as illegal and had directed its management to repatriate the mills to their previous locations.

“Reasons to be recorded later on as we do not find any substance in the instance appeals and have dismissed it instantly”, former chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar had announced in a short order.

The court had ruled that the petitioners are prevented from operating their mills after two months and during the period they may remove the equipment and then shift it to other place. The court however, ruled that the buildings of the said sugar mills would remain intact and could be utilised for other industrial purposes. Later, the Sharif family filed a review petition in the Supreme Court against its verdict. On Tuesday Malik Qayyum and Ali Sabtain Fazli, counsels for Itefaq Sugar Mills and Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills, owned by Sharif family, appeared before the court and presented their respective arguments.

The court after hearing the arguments of the counsels, dismissed the review petitions.

It is to recall that a three-member LHC bench, headed by then chief justice Mansoor Ali Shah, while hearing a petition, filed by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader and JDW Sugar Mills owner Jehangir Tareen had declared the relocation of the Sharif family’s mills in South Punjab ‘illegal’ and ordered all the mills – namely Ittefaq Sugar Mills, Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills and Chaudhry Sugar Mills – be repatriated to their previous locations.

Jehangir Tareen, had pleaded before the learned LHC that the mills were shifted to new locations despite a ban that had been previously imposed on relocating the sugar mills, violating the government’s own policy.