Sugar mill owners challenge LHC verdict in SC

This is the second such petition before the SC in which the high court’s Sept 3 directive has been challenged. — File photo

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) on Saturday challenged before the Supreme Court the judgment of the Lahore High Court that required the Punjab government to ensure the sale of sugar at Rs40 per kg across the province.

Filed by former attorney general Makhdoom Ali Khan on behalf of PSMA General Secretary K. Ali Qazalbash, the petition questioned the suo motu powers of the high court and requested the apex court to set aside the order for being without lawful authority. On Sept 3, the Punjab government was ordered by the Lahore High Court to ensure the sale of sugar at Rs40 per kg all over the province and had permitted it to recover sugar from all places after making payment at a rate of Rs36 per kg to stockists.

This is the second such petition before the Supreme Court in which the high court’s Sept 3 directive to the Punjab government has been challenged. Earlier, the Punjab Sugar Dealers Association had filed a similar petition in Supreme Court with the same contention.

In the fresh petition, the federal government, through the finance secretary, ministries of industries and production, commerce, Chairman of the Trading Corporation of Pakistan and the Punjab government’s agriculture secretary are respondents.

Important questions of law have been raised in the petition. The petitioners contend that fixing prices of commodities and seeking to run the market through judicial orders is against the powers of the courts.

‘Therefore, the high court’s impugned judgment is an unprecedented judicial transgression impinging upon the right guaranteed under Article 18 (freedom of trade, business or profession) of the Constitution,’ the PSMA said.

It describes the high court’s order as incompetent and capricious since the direction makes no reference to any law from which the power to fix prices emanates.

The petition also questions what it called undue haste shown by the court in deciding the matter, terming the verdict unilateral nature and based on extraneous considerations.

The petition contended that the high court’s judgment discriminated against the sugar mills of Punjab as they would be coerced into selling the commodity at Rs36 per kg while in the rest of the country mills would be selling it at the government rate of Rs45 per kg. ‘This will unfold events of a magnitude which are not in contemplation of the court as the high court, by one stroke of the pen, tried to impose a simplistic solution on an issue which is complex and intricate and for the resolution of which no legally manageable judicial standards are available.’

Price controls, the petition claimed, never worked. Price controls invariably fail to protect most consumers. Summing up, the PSMA said: ‘An artificial pricing mechanism never succeeds as it always results in shortages due to sudden increase in demand owing to panic buying.

‘Official controls also discourage production of quality goods and encourage cuts in output. Price controls offer incentives for hoarding, black-marketing, production cuts, forcing many consumers to pay for a product or an item a lot more than what they would have to pay if price controls were not in place.’ Link...