PESHAWAR, Nov 20: Peshawar High Court on Thursday directed Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to submit a comprehensive report about sale of flour by the utility stores in the province during the last six months.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Ziauddin Khattak directed FIA deputy director Mohammad Noran Afridi to mention in the said report entire details about the transportation, supply and sale of flour relating to utility stores and also about the quality of the commodity.

On the information provided by Anti Corruption Establishment (ACE) director Mohammad Hashim Khan, the bench ordered the establishment department to provide additional staff to ACE so that it could properly tackle with the issue of involvement of government officials in flour smuggling.Mr Hashim Khan stated that they were short of staff owing to which they could not check illegalities committed by government officials in different areas. He added that they had already requested the government for recruitment of required staff.

He also informed the bench that according to the directives of the high court they had taken into custody an assistant food controller, Ashfaq Khan, and inquiry had been in progress to ascertain his role in smuggling of flour.

The bench in daylong proceedings issued various directives to the government and law enforcement agencies for checking wheat and flour smuggling from the province, sky rocketing prices of the commodity and availability of sub-standard flour. The court fixed Dec 18 for next hearing with the directives to all the concerned officials to follow order of the court.

The court had taken suo motu notice of the flour crisis in the province on Oct 20 while hearing a writ petition of Pakistan Flour Mills Association, NWFP chapter, and had summoned concerned police officers, high-ranking officials of the provincial government including food, home and local government departments.

The court ordered the concerned district police officers to maintain proper public complaint register and widely announce a toll free telephone number on which citizens could register their complaints about wheat and flour smuggling. It was directed that newspapers should publish without any charges the said toll free numbers in different districts.

The bench also directed Peshawar City Police Chief to take appropriate action against hoarders and smugglers. It was pointed out that to avoid any raid those people had shifted the commodity to other stores situated in the limits of Nasirbagh, Chamkani, University Town and Faqirabad police stations.

During the last hearing the bench had directed the NWFP government to approach the federal government for playing its constitutional role regarding provision of wheat and flour from Punjab in 50 to 50 ratios otherwise the province should be permitted to import high quality wheat from abroad.

The bench again observed that provincial food minister, food secretary and agriculture secretary should prevail on the federal government for supply of quality wheat. “If the government fails to address the issue then the court would be compelled to pass appropriate order,” Justice Dost Mohammad observed.

The flour mills in the province were on the verge of closure due to non-availability of wheat and had already rendered hundreds of labourers unemployed, the bench pointed out.The petitioner’s counsel, Moazam Butt, stated that in coming times the world would be facing severe food crisis and the directives issued by the high court, if properly implemented, would help them in containing that future crisis. He suggested that government should provide white hard wheat along with red soft wheat to the millers so that quality flour could be grinded.

Moreover, he added that ban placed by the provincial government on inter-district movement of wheat and flour should be lifted as it was in violation to the constitution.NWFP Food Department director Abdur Rasheed Khan stated that the government had not imposed any ban on inter-district movement of wheat. He said that wheat provided to them by the federal government was red soft category and now they were in need of white hard wheat so as to blend it with the other quality while grinding.

The bench suggested that provincial government should think on the possibility of grinding the present substandard wheat and exporting flour to Afghanistan, which would help in earning foreign currency, and at the same time the provincial government should prevail on the federal government for provision of quality wheat.