Show cause notices to sugar mills: LHC stays proceedings, seeks reply from chairman

The Lahore High Court (LHC) here on Thursday stayed the proceedings on show cause notices issued to four sugar mills by Competition Commission Pakistan (CCP) and sought reply from its chairman by February 11. The court passed these orders in a petition of Kohinoor, Chishtian, Gojra-Sammundari and Sheikhu Sugar Mills challenging the CCP orders of December 31, 2009 accusing them of cartelisation.
The petitioner-companies through their counsel Ijaz Ahmad Awan argued that the CCP issued notices to the petitioners under Competition Ordinance 2009, which had been declared annulled by Supreme Court in its landmark judgement of July 31 on the NRO.
The Supreme Court had ordered that all the ordinances promulgated by former president General Pervez Musharraf (Retd) including the impugned ordinance were to be approved by the parliament within 4 months. But the parliament did not do so, however, the President re-enact the said ordinance in violation of the SC judgement. The counsel prayed to the court to declare the show-cause notices issued to the petitioners by the CCP as unconstitutional and without any lawful jurisdiction.