PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Tuesday reserved its judgement over petitions against non-allocation of quota to sugar mills in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for exporting the sweetener in accordance with a decision of federal government.

A bench consisting of Justice Ijaz Anwar and Justice Dr Khurshid Iqbal heard arguments of all the parties including the petitioners and federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments.

The petitions have been filed by Chashma Sugar Mills, Tandlianwala Sugar Mills and Al-Moiz Industries, seeking orders to provincial government to allocate quota to them for export of sugar in accordance with a decision of Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of June 13, 2024.

They requested the court to declare that the KP government could not delay or abdicate itself from the issuance of export quota to petitioners with the timeline as laid down by ECC, which was constitutionally binding on it.

Petitioners accuse KP govt of violating ECC decision

Advocate Isaac Ali Qazi appeared for the petitioners whereas the additional advocate general, Inam Yousafzai, and the additional attorney general, Hazrat Said, represented the KP and federal governments, respectively.

Mr Qazi said that Pakistan Sugar Mills Association informed federal government through a letter on April 30, 2024, that there was a potential of export of around 1.5 million metric tonnes (MMT) sugar, which was surplus of the national need, in the financial year 2024-25, out of which one MMT could be exported up to September 2024 before the next crushing season.

He said that Sugar Advisory Board (SAB) reviewed the situation on June 10. He added that SAB observed that according to provincial cane commissioners, available sugar stocks on June 5 was 4.213 MMT whereas sugar consumption in the next six months would be 3.408 MMT, so 0.805 surplus sugar would be available in the country at the closing of the current crushing year on November 30.

The counsel said that after detailed deliberation, SAB allowed an initial export of 0.150 MMT of surplus sugar with the conditions that PSMA should give undertaking that the ex-mill prices wouldn’t increase beyond Rs140 per kilogram and the entire export proceeds through sugar mills would be utilised for clearing payments of growers.

Mr Qazi said that ECC approved the summary of SAB with specific directives to the ministry of industries to ensure that quota for export of sugar should be distributed among provinces as per current year’s actual production and the provincial cane commissioners should allocate quota for export of sugar within seven days of the issuance of notifications by the ministry of commerce as per policy approved by ECC on stocks available on June 5, 2024.

He said that federal cabinet ratified the ECC’s decision on June 25, 2024. He said that through separate office memorandums on June 26, industries and commerce ministries allocated an export quota of 150,000 MT among sugar producing provinces, which included 64 per cent quota for Punjab, 30 per cent for Sindh and six per cent for KP.

The lawyer argued that as per the decision, cane commissioners had to allocate export quota to sugar mills in their respective province. However, he stated that Punjab and Sindh acted within seven days of the specified time period, the KP government had been delaying the matter and not issuing the required export allocation.

When the bench inquired whether the provincial government could deviate from the decision made by the federal government, AAG Inam Yousafzai contended that Article 148 (2) of Constitution was clear on the matter as it provided that in exercise of executive authority of federation in any province, the interest of that province should be regarded.

To another query by the bench as to why representative of the province had not raised any objection in the SAB meeting, he stated that their cane commissioner had objected to the decision in the said meeting.

He pointed out that the available stock of the commodity in the province would be consumed by October 23 after which the province would be facing its shortage. He added that the crushing season would start on November 15.

The AAG said that Punjab and Sindh provinces were having surplus stocks and they were in a position to export it, but KP was not having surplus stock for exporting the same.

The additional attorney general, Hazrat Said, contradicted Mr Yousafzai’s contentions, stating that the representative of the province had not raised any objection in the SAB meeting and government had taken decision of exporting sugar in consultation with all the provincial governments.

Mr Qazi contended that under the Constitution, export and import was the sole domain of the federation as mentioned in Entry No.27 of Federal Legislative List.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2024