ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday disposed of a federal government’s appeal against the Aug 3 Lahore High Court (LHC) order to grant stay to sugar mills against the government’s measures of fixing sugar price and recovery of differential amount from the mills.

A three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial disposed of the appeal when Additional Attorney General Chaudhry Aamir Rehman told the court that the case had become infructuous since the LHC had already ordered the sugar mills to pay the differential amount through post-dated cheques.

The apex court however observed that the sugar mills should make cash payments than paying through post-dated cheques.

Appeal has become ineffective as LHC has ordered mills to pay differential amount, apex court told

Earlier, the Supreme Court had remanded the case back to the LHC with a directive to decide the matter within a fortnight.

The federal government had earlier pleaded through the appeal before the Supreme Court to set aside the LHC order with a pleading that the decision might cause irreparable loss to the public at large when sugar being an essential commodity and purchased and consumed by the people on daily basis was sold at high rates.

The petition pleaded that the alleged disagreement by the sugar mills regarding the recovery of over heads and profits was a disputed question of fact when the price fixed by the Controller General of Prices (CGP) by relying upon the data provided by 32 sugar mills on the average basis was a well-reasoned and lawful order, aimed at passing the benefit to the public at large in providing an essential commodity on a controlled rate under the law.

The petition named eight sugar mills as respondents namely Hamza Sugar Mills (Pvt) Ltd, Madina Sugar Mills, Indus Sugar Mills, Jauharabad Sugar Mills, Ashraf Sugar Mills, Adam Sugar Mills, Tandiawala Sugar Mills and Shahtaj Sugar Mills.

The petition explained that the price fixed by the CGP through July 30 order at the rate of Rs84.5 per kg ex-mill and Rs89.5 per kg retail followed the same criteria adopted in a meeting earlier held on April 7 on the directive of the LHC.

The appeal argued that the price fixed by the CGP after hearing the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association by following the July 23 directive of the LHC and reasons recorded for fixing the price of the sugar on the basis of the data provided by the 32 sugar mills, cane commissioner, banks and finance division could not be interfered in the constitutional jurisdiction of the high court.

Thus the LHC through its Aug 3 order had denied the public at large to get benefit of the price control of sugar, the appeal contended, adding that the jurisdiction exercised by the CGP was protected under the relevant law and could not be called in question by any court.

The federal government regretted that the high court had granted final relief to the sugar mills in the garb of interim relief, especially when the high court could not exercise its constitutional jurisdiction as an appellate court to determine the merits of the price determination by the CGP.

The appeal stated that the petitions before the high court were not maintainable against the fixing of price of an essential commodity under Section 6 of the Price Control and Prevention of Profiteering and Hoarding Act 1977 by the CGP being purely a question of fact in a specialised technical field.

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2021