LAHORE: By setting a firm precedent, the Lahore High Court (LHC) judgment regarding running of sugar mill, potentially strips millers of their leverage to use the crushing timeline as a bargaining chip once and for all.
The LHC has dismissed a joint writ petition filed by the owners of leading sugar mills, effectively upholding the Punjab government’s notification to commence the sugarcane crushing season on November 15, 2025.
The petitioning major sugar mills, seeking to delay the crushing season, include Ashraf Sugar Mills, JDW Sugar Mills (Unit-1, 2), Seven Star Sugar Mills, Etihad Sugar Mills, Shahtaj Sugar Mills, Fatima Sugar Mills, Hamza Sugar Mills, Pattoki Sugar Mills and JK Sugar Mills (Unit-I).
Effectively upholding the Punjab government’s notification to commence the sugarcane crushing season on November 15, 2025, the court rejected the petitioners’ plea to delay crushing until November 30, citing legal, scientific and economic grounds.
The verdict by Judge Justice Muhammad Sajid Mehmood Sethi also specifically mentioned Ramzan Sugar Mills and Tariq Corporation Ltd as mills that had already commenced crushing (on November 3 and November 12 respectively), proving the crop was ready. This decisive action is credited with potentially averting a severe national sugar crisis, given the critically low national stock levels.
The stock position as of November 15, 2025, totalling 312,040 MT including Trading Corporation (TCP) reserves, was deemed barely sufficient to meet immediate supply chain demand. By dismissing the millers’ challenge, the court ensured the timely commencement of new production, thereby stabilising the market and securing public supply.
As per the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association’s own data, the ending sugar stock was critically low as of November 15, 2025, with Punjab holding 119,371MT, Sindh at 34,643MT, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) possessing 3,863MT, bringing the operational supply total to 157,877MT. When factoring in the government’s TCP stock of 154,163 MT, the national grand total stood at just 312,040MT, a quantity barely adequate to meet current supply chain demands, underscoring the necessity of the court-mandated early crushing.
Importantly, the court ruled that Section 8 of the Sugar Factories Control Act, 1950 empowers the government to set a start date. The phrase “not later than November 30” establishes a final deadline but does not prohibit the government from fixing an earlier date like November 15.
Moreover, regarding scientific evidence of crop maturity, the verdict relied on data from the Sugarcane Research Institute and Ayub Agriculture Research Institute, which showed sucrose recoveries of 10.55 per cent. This indicates the crop is mature and ready for crushing, exceeding the 9.3 per cent recovery recorded at the end of the previous season.
It also highlights the launching of the crushing season’s critical link to wheat sowing: The Court accepted the government’s argument that delayed sugarcane crushing prevents farmers from clearing fields in time for wheat sowing. This delay poses a direct threat to national food security.
Stressing economic necessity and low stocks, LHS observed that with sugar stocks critically low at 153,550MT compared to 603,820MT in the corresponding period of the previous year, early crushing is necessary to stabilize market prices and supply. The Court viewed this as a rational policy decision rather than an arbitrary act.
The court reprimanded the sugar mills for ‘mala fide’. It was revealed that the mills had already signed an agreement with the federal government on July 14, 2025, undertaking to start crushing in the first week of November. Concealing this fact from the court disentitled them to any relief.
The argument that Punjab mills were being discriminated against compared to other provinces was also rejected by the court, which held that different climatic and agronomic conditions justify different schedules for each province.
Commenting on the verdict, Ch Zaka Ashraf of the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) said: The crux of the matter lies not just in the crushing date, which the law sets as late as November 30, but in the suffocating grip of government regulation that stifles business viability. If the government wants the sugar sector to thrive like the rice industry, which earns the country $5 billion annually, he stressed, it must embrace deregulation.
It is unreasonable to expect entrepreneurs, who invest Rs15 billion per mill and shoulder the burden of bank loans, taxes and farmer payments to survive without the freedom to make their own operational decisions. Government control is strangling an industry that sustains millions of lives and develops critical infrastructure in the country’s most backward areas, he observed.
