ISLAMABAD: The National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) on Saturday approached the Supreme Court with a plea to order constitution of a committee for operating eight sugar mills in Sindh, owned by the Omni Group, to prevent default on payment to sugar cane farmers or banks.

The crushing season will begin in November and if the mills do not start operation immediately it will not only hit cane growers but also render the NBP and other banks unable to recover the loans given to the group, argued senior counsel S. Naeem Bokhari in an application moved on behalf of the Omni Group of Companies.

Take a look: Millions withdrawn from Omni Group's 'frozen' accounts, FIA tells SC

According to the applicant, the banks would have no other option but to sell plants, machinery, buildings and land of the entities to recover the loans in such case.

At a time when the national economy has already slowed down, non-crushing of sugar cane in the eight mills would aggravate the situation, the applicant argued.

Says banks would have to sell plants, buildings and land to recover the loans

The application was submitted to a three-judge bench of the apex court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar, which was seized with a money laundering case through fake accounts worth Rs35 billion.

Recently, the court had appointed a special Joint Investigation Team, headed by Additional Director General of Federal Investigation Agency Ahsan Sadiq, to probe if the eight sugar mills were owned by the Omni group or held as “Benami”.

On Aug 15, Khawaja Anvar Majeed and Abdul Ghani Majeed of the Omni Group of Companies and Husain Lawai, former chairman of the Pakistan Stock Exchange, were arrested by the FIA on the SC premises in the fake accounts case.

The apex court later also rejected their applications and ordered the FIA to shift them to the prison from hospital where they had been under medical treatment.

In its application, the NBP explained the relationship between the Omni Group and the NBP in wake of a fifth report filed by the JIT and reported ‘negligence’ on part of bankers.

The bank explained that the Omni Group became its client/customer in 2003 by opening accounts and availing various financing facilities. The relationship continues till date as the group continued to pay mark-up regularly till March 2018 when the company accounts were blocked by the FIA through its order of July 31.

‘Not a single default in 15 years’

Between 2003 and 2018, the NBP said it earned around Rs7 billion as a mark-up from the Omni Group with not a single default or write-off.

The applicant also cited the names of different sugar mills and other entities believed to be owned by the Omni Group such as Tando Allah Yar Sugar Mills (Pvt) Ltd, Ansari Sugar Mills Ltd, Bawany Sugar Mills Ltd, Khoski Sugar Mills (Pvt) Ltd, Naudero Sugar Mills (Pvt) Ltd, New Dadu Sugar Mills (Pvt), Dadu Energy (Pvt) Ltd, Larr Sugar Mills (Pvt) Ltd, Chamber Sugar Mills (Pvt) Ltd etc.

The NBP said there were regular withdrawals and deposits in a normal course of business in the accounts of the Omni Group before the accounts were blocked. The withdrawals related to general working capital requirements of the companies, the applicant added.

Published in Dawn, October 21st , 2018