LAHORE: A Lahore High Court (LHC) division bench on Monday allowed one week to chief executive officers (CEOs) of three sugar mills, believed to be owned by the family of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his close relatives, to submit a written explanation for violation of stay orders.

Earlier, in compliance with contempt of court notices, Chaudhry Sugar Mills CEO Yousaf Abbas Sharif (the nephew of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif), Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills CEO Waqas Riaz and Ittefaq Sugar Mills CEO Mian Javed Shafi appeared before the bench headed by LHC Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah.

Addressing the mills’ representatives, the chief justice observed that the mills had been found guilty of blatant violation of the court’s stay orders pertaining to their functioning. The violation of the judicial orders could not be tolerated, the CJ added.

Accepting the request of the sugar mills’ CEOs, the bench directed them to submit their written replies within a week.

The bench is hearing intra-court appeals filed by the mills against a decision of a single bench that declared their shifting to districts of south Punjab void.

JDW Sugar Mills of PTI leader Jahangir Tareen and others had assailed the relocation of the Sharif family’s mills before the single bench. They had argued that the mills were shifted to other districts in violation of a ban and without permission of the provincial government.

However, a two-judge bench later suspended the decision. The petitioners then approached the Supreme Court against that order.

The apex court had remanded the case to the LHC with direction to decide the appeals of the mills.

On the previous hearing, the bench had issued contempt of court notices to the CEOs of the three sugar mills for carrying out sugarcane crushing in defiance of the stay.

Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, representing Mr Tareen, had told the bench that the appellant sugar mills had violated the court’s order and continued sugarcane crushing.

The appellant sugar mills had already been sealed following an order issued by the bench in March last.

Published in Dawn, May 09th, 2017