LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Monday agreed to constitute a local commission to visit and verif y alleged shifting of four sugar mills owned by close relatives of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Justice Ayesha A Malik had already suspended two notifications issued by industries secretary that allowed shifting of Ittefaq Sugar Mills Sahiwal, Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills Nankana Sahib, Abdullah (Yousaf) Sugar Mills Sargodha and Abdullah Sugar Mills Dipalpur to other districts.

The judge had ordered a status quo with respect to shifting or relocating of these mills. JDW Sugar Mills, owned by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf MNA Jahangir Tareen, and others had filed the petitions against shifting of the mills. Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif was also made party in the petition.

The petitioners stated industries secretary had issued impugned notifications on Dec 4, 2015 with mala fide intention to facilitate the relocation of these four mills. They said under Section 3 of Punjab Industries (Control on Establishment andEnlargement) Ordinance, there was a restriction on establishment of industrial undertaking without the provincial government`s permission.

Under this section, various notifications had been issued imposing restrictions on establishing new sugar mills in the province, they added.

The petitioners pleaded it was the government`s consistent position that relocation amounted to establishment of a new industrial undertaking.

Allowing a request of the petitioner`s counsel, the judge constituted a local commission to examine the status of respondent sugar mills and sought nominees from the government and petitioners. The judge would resume hearing on March 29.

ORANGE LINE: The attorney general on Monday asked the Lahore High Court to recall its stay against construction of Orange Line Metro Train near heritage sites, saying the government was facing great financial losses.

During hearing of petitions against the project before a division bench, Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt also questioned the jurisdiction of the court to intervene in policy matters of the government. He said many judgements of theSupreme Court restrained courts from intervening in policy affairs.

However, he said, the court could give a judicial review to a project if there were complaints of corruption or mala fide intention. The principal law officer argued that the metro train was a public welfare project and such projects were always given priority over heritage sites.

Justice Abid Aziz Sheikh did not buy this argument and observed that in the UK even a single brick of a heritage site could not be displaced.

The bench adjourned the hearing for Tuesday (today) and asked the attorney general to come up with his final arguments. The bench also directed a two-member local commission to submit its report at the earliest about alleged violation of stay order against construction of the metro train within a radius of 200 feet of 11 heritage sites.

Earlier, the commission members told the bench they would visit the sites on March 9 along with heads of all government departments concerned.

The bench also issued notices to the federal and Punjab governments on an application from the petitioner for disclosing reasons behind the expensive project.