ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday ordered the relocation of sugar mills owned by the Sharif family back to central Punjab, after declaring an earlier relocation of the mills to south Punjab as illegal.
The court ordered that Ittefaq Sugar Mills, Chaudhry Sugar Mills and Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills should be shifted back to central Punjab within two months.
The sugar mills were relocated to south Punjab after the former provincial government amended a 2006 notification that banned the establishment of new sugar mills and the expansion and relocation of the existing ones, in 2015.
The Lahore High Court declared the relocation illegal on an application filed by former Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) secretary general Jahangir Tareen.
The court decision was, however, challenged by the mill owners in the Supreme Court (SC), where it was heard by a three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar.
Earlier this year, Justice Nisar had ordered that the mills stay in their current location until the cane crushing season is over. Now that the season is over, the chief justice, in a short order issued on Thursday, said that the mills be relocated to their original locations in central Punjab within two months.
The buildings of the mills, which will be vacated after the relocation, should not be demolished and instead used for any other purpose, the top judge said.
