LHC orders sealing of Sharif family's two sugar mills

RECORDER REPORT

LAHORE: A division bench of the Lahore High Court on Thursday ordered the sealing of Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills and Chaudhry Sugar Mills owned by the ruling Sharif family which were shifted to new locations in violation of stay orders.

The bench headed by Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah also directed sessions judges of Muzaffarghar and R Y Khan to submit the compliance report. The bench observed that the two sugar mills would remain shut till further orders and adjourned the proceedings to March 28 in intra-court appeals of these two mills and Ittefaq Sugar Mills. These mills had challenged a single benchs decision of setting aside their shifting to new districts.

The single bench had passed the impugned decision on October 2016 on petitions filed by JDW Sugar Mills of PTI leader Jahangir Tareen and others.

Earlier, Aitzaz Ahsan, presenting JDW Sugar Mills, stated that the three sugar mills of the Sharif family completed their shifting process in violation of stay orders issued by different courts.

He said Chaudhry Sugar Mills spent Rs 600 million on its relocation despite the stay. He also presented a bank documents and photographs of the mills shifting process in support of his argument. Aitzaz further argued that the relocation policy for sugar mills announced by the provincial government in 2015 was based on mala fide intention. He said environmental laws were also ignored in shifting of the mills.