ISLAMABAD: Allowing the federal government appeal, the apex court on Wednesday suspended the Sindh High Court (SHC) judgment against an inquiry commission report on sugar mills.
The court also issued notices to the sugar mills owners' parties in the instant matter and adjourned the case for one month.
A three-member special bench headed by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed heard the federation's appeal against the SHC verdict.
The SHC on 17 August 2020 quashed the fact-finding report and the notifications constituting a commission of inquiry.
Attorney General for Pakistan Khalid Jawed Khan argued that the federal government had constituted the inquiry commission under the Pakistan Commission of Inquiry Act, 2017, in order to redress the public grievances and to unravel the facts and expose the inner working of this industry.
He said that sugar mill owners' objection was that they were not taken on board on the formation of the commission, while the fact was that they were aware of the mandate and the working of the commission.
They did not raise any objection on commission until its final report, which was approved by the cabinet.
The AGP contended that the cabinet, after approving the report, said the relevant regulatory bodies will take action against the respondents in accordance with the law, thus no violation of law was made.
He contended that the commission's report was merely a fact-finding exercise and could not be set aside on the basis of apprehension of the respondents against whom no final determination of rights or liabilities had been made in the report nor any action taken as such.
"The inquiry commission report contains facts and the data that has to be established by the regulatory bodies, so no prejudice is caused to the sugar mills," he added.
He also argued that the subsequent addition of a member in the Commission after the approval by the Cabinet vide notification dated 25 March 2020 did not violate the provision of the Pakistan Commission of Inquiry Act, 2017, and caused bias to the respondents.
The federation on August 27 had filed an appeal urging the apex court to suspend the SHC judgment.
According to the appeal, the SHC upheld the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association's (PSMA's) contention purely on technical grounds that the summary for constituting the Commission was initiated by interior rather than the Cabinet Division, and that the notifications were belatedly published in the official gazette.
The federation contended that the SHC grossly erred in law and facts and based the impugned judgment on completely unjustified assumption that the aggrieved party in this case is the group of manufacturers of sugar.
It stated the aggrieved party to that matter was millions of consumers who were being grossly overcharged the price of an essential commodity, i.e., sugar by a "cartel" of sugar manufacturers.
The public at large also suffers billions of rupees in evaded taxes owing to under-reporting of the actual production by the manufacturers.
"The federation submitted that the SHC judgment made observations about the appointment and role of advisor/SAPM [Shehzad Mirza] despite the fact that this was neither the issue directly nor argued in detail before the court. The findings in the impugned judgment are contrary to the facts and of the law as well as the Constitution," it added.
The impugned judgment of the SHC is contrary to the settled principles of law as well as principles of equity, and is liable to be set aside by the apex court.
The SHC, apart from declaring the report "null and void", had also directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to launch a fresh investigation into the matter.
The court had directed the FBR, the FIA, and the NAB to include people "who knew the sugar industry" in their investigation, and directed the institutions to carry out a fresh investigation as per the law.
"If any government official has misused his powers, it should be investigated," the SHC had said in its order.
It also asked the FBR to investigate the matter according to the country's tax laws.
"The FIA should also ignore the Sugar Inquiry Commission's report and re-investigate [the increase in prices]," the court had directed in its verdict.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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