PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court has directed the provincial government to fix sugar price in the province after consulting sugar mills within 10 days.

It, however, declared that the sweetener’s rate fixed by the industries and commerce department would remain effective until the new rate was announced.

The development came as a bench consisting of Justice Lal Jan Khattak and Justice Syed Arshad Ali disposed of a petition of the Premier Sugar Mills Mardan and two others against the April 10 order of the director (industries and commerce) to fix the ex-mill sugar price at Rs80 per kg and retail price at Rs85 per kg.

Agreeing to the petitioners’ point that they had not been heard by the department on sugar pricing, the bench ordered the respondents, including the chief secretary and industries secretary and director, to convene a meeting of the petitioners and other stakeholders to resolve the price issue after examining the detailed cost analysis by mills.

Declares rate fixed by dept unchanged for time being

The bench observed that the exercise should be completed within 10 days.

It, however, ruled that in order to avoid the possibility of any hoarding and profiteering especially in the holy month of Ramazan, there would be no change in the sugar price fixed through the impugned order of Apr 10, 2021, until a decision was taken about it by the meeting to be held on its order.

Qazi Jawad Ahsanullah, lawyer for the petitioners, requested the bench to declare illegal the fixing of sugar price by the director industries on Apr 10.

He said if the government wanted to fix a particular sugar price, then it should do so after hearing the viewpoint of mills in order to protect their due profit margin in the business.

The lawyer argued that while fixing sugar price, the respondents had violated the provisions of the law related to essential food items.

He insisted that while fixing sugar price, the respondents didn’t take into consideration the viewpoint and stand of the petitioners regarding production cost and issued the impugned order unilaterally and in an unstructured manner.

Advocate general Shumail Ahmad Butt told the court that being a policy matter, the government’s decision on sweetener’s price through the impugned order could not be assailed in a petition as it was taken in the people’s interest and that, too, for stabilising and controlling sugar price in the Islamic month of fasting.

He argued that prior to the passing of the impugned order, the respondents, in the process of fixing price, gave the ‘due regard’ to the protection of the legitimate rights and lawful interests of the petitioners.

The bench observed that though the respondents had claimed in their comments that while working out the impugned fixing, the petitioners were provided with an ample opportunity of hearing in the meeting convened for the purpose.

It, however, declared that the minutes of the meeting held on Apr 9 with the owners of sugar mills would reveal that the petitioners’ viewpoint was not taken down while tackling the price issue.

“Admittedly, the petitioners are the real stakeholders in the issue for being the producers of the essential commodity [sugar] and therefore, their stand on price fixing should have been taken into consideration by the respondents, especially when they were duly invited to attend the meeting to discuss the fixing of the price,” it ruled.

The bench observed that it could be safely held that the real stakeholders had been condemned unheard.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2021