Punjab cane commissioner was given a go-ahead to proceed with the auction for Brothers Sugar Mills, which is said to have defaulted on billions of rupees in payments to farmers and banks. A two-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Justice Maqbool Baqar, which heard the banks' and the growers' petitions, directed that the cane commissioner without being influenced from any party proceed with the auction strictly in accordance with the law.
The Lahore High Court (LHC) in 2016 had ordered the Punjab cane commissioner to seal the mills for defaulting on Rs 840 million payments to cane growers. The court also ordered that the sugar stocks worth Rs 700 million be paid to growers.
The LHC had not entertained banks' writ petitions against the mills for their claims. They therefore approached the Supreme Court. The total liability of the Brothers Sugar Mills is more than Rs 5 billion. Additional Advocate General Punjab Chaudhry Faisal Farid submitted a progress report about the auction for Brothers Sugar Mills. According to it, on March 03, 2020 again, auction was held in committee room of the deputy commissioner's office, Kasur, as the amount offered by the buyers in earlier exercise was below the reserve price of Rs 6 billion.
The report mentioned that three bidders identified as Muhammad Islam, Manzoor Khan and M/s Madina Sugar Mill through Sohail Ahmed participated in the bidding process. Final bid of Rs 4.25 billion was offered by Madina Sugar Mill, which is Rs 200 million more than the last bid dated January 28, 2020. Chaudhry Faisal informed the bench that the management of M/s Brothers Sugar Mills still did not deposit any amount to discharge liabilities.
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