' Messrs Baba Farid Sugar Mills Limited, Okara, through its authorised agent, Mr. James R. Richards, Principal Staff Officer of the Company, has filed this petition under Article 9 of the Provisional Constitution Order, 1981, against the Commissioner, Lahore Division, Lahore, Cane Commissioner Punjab (Food Department), Lahore, and Messrs Ittefaq Sugar Mills Limited, Pakpattan Road, Sahiwal. The petitioner has challenged the vires of letter No, C (Cane) Z (21)/82, dated 22nd of September, 1983.
2. The petitioner's case is that the aforesaid letter is ab initio void, as such, it is without lawful authority and is of no legal consequence.
3. The Cane Commissioner, Punjab, vide Notification No, C (Cane) Z (8)/82, dated 30-10-1982, allotted various Chaks of Tehsil Okara, Pakpattan, Sahiwal and Depalpur of District Sahiwal, as Assigned Area. The purpose of this allotment was supply of sugar-cane to the petitioner Company. A day after the aforesaid Notification i,e, on 31-10-1982, another notification was issued. By means of this notification, other Chaks in Tehsil Okara, Pakpattan, Depalpur and Sahiwal were allotted to the petitioner. This area was declared as Reserved Area. This was also for the supply of sugar-cane to the Mill. The allotment of the Assigned Area and Reserved Area was for the crushing seasons for 1982-83, 1983-84 and 1984-85.
' After the allotment of the aforesaid Chaks, the petitioner entered into agreement with the cane-growers in both the areas. It is alleged that a colossal amount was advanced to the growers in the two areas. The amount so given was to be ultimately adjusted against the supply of sugarcane for the crushing season of 1983-84.
Pending this, the impugned letter was issued by the Cane Commissioner, Punjab, Lahore. It was received by the petitioner on 27-9-1983. The effect of the impugned letter was that 14 Chaks of Okara, 133 Chaks of Sahiwal and 13 Chaks of Depalpur were excluded from the allotted area of the petitioner. These Chaks were included in the tentative zone area of respondent No, 3 Ittefaq Sugar Mills Limited. This cancellation included some Chaks from the Assigned Area, others from the Reserved Area. Under section 2 (a) Assigned Area means "an area assigned to a factory under subsection (1) of section 14" and under section 2 (n) Reserved area means "an area specified in an order issued under section 10" of the Sugar Factories Control Act, 1950.
4. The petitioner filed an appeal against the impugned letter before the Commissioner, Lahore Division, Lahore.
This appeal was partly allowed by order, dated 22-10-1983 as a result of which the Assigned Area was allowed to remain with the petitioner till the final decision of the Sugarcane Control Board. Thereafter, a letter was addressed by Ittefaq Sugar Mills Limited to the Commissioner, Lahore Division, Lahore, which, according to them, was a review petition.
5. While this review petition was pending, the petitioner filed this petition in this Court which came up for hearing before me on 20th of November, 1983. I called for a report from respondent No, 1 within two weeks, and also suspended the operation of the impugned order in the meanwhile. Thereafter, a civil miscellaneous petition was removed on behalf of Ittefaq Sugar Mills in which they prayed for vacation of the interim order. As by then, the petition had not been admitted to regular hearing, I ordered that the civil miscellaneous petition of respondent No, 3 shall be heard alongwith the writ petition. Finally, on 10-12-1983, after hearing the arguments of learned counsel for the parties and that of the learned Assistant Advocate-General who entered appearance under my order, I admitted the petition to regular hearing.
6. Learned counsel for the petitioner contended that the impugned letter was without lawful authority because it was issued without consulting the Sugarcane Control Board which was an essential legal formality as required by section 10 (1) of the Sugar Factories Control Act, 1950. It was further submitted that the petitioner was not given any opportunity of hearing, as such he had been condemned unheard. Relying on section 14 (1) of the Sugar Factories Control Act, 1950, learned counsel contended that the Cane Commissioner was not legally empowered to issue the impugned letter. Learned counsel also raised a few other contentions, for instance that respondent No, 2 overlooked an important legal and factual aspect which was that after the allotment of the Reserved and Assigned Area, the petitioner incurred heavy expenditure in entering into agreements with the cane-growers for the supply of sugar-cane. In this connection my attention was invited to rule 9 (3) of the Sugar Factories Control Rules, 1950. Learned counsel submitted that this aspect was completely ignored and this is bound to cause irreparable loss to the petitioner.
7. The learned Assistant Advocate-General took up the position that no final order has yet been passed.
According to him, the impugned letter was a mere proposal. It may, at the most, amount to a tentative order. He submitted that the matter is yet to be finally determined and for that the meeting of the Sugarcane Control Board is to take place tomorrow. He conceded that the Cane Commissioner was not competent in law to pass any order without consulting the Sugarcane Control Board. With regard to the plea of Audi alter am partem taken by the petitioner, the learned Law Officer submitted that this was not correct. The petitioner's authorised representative had been participating in the meetings held off and on.
8. Learned counsel for respondent No, 3 adopted the arguments advanced by the learned Assistant Advocate- General. In addition to this, he submitted that as a matter of fact it was respondent No, 3 who had not been heard. He was confronted with the observation made in the order of the Commissioner regarding their representatives. Learned counsel submitted that respondent No, 3 did not authorise anybody to appear on their behalf. Hence the order of the Commissioner while dealing with the appeal filed by the petitioner vis-a-vis respondent No, 3 was ex parte.
9. Learned counsel for the petitioner contended that the impugned letter, whether it is an order or notification, the petitioner is genuinely aggrieved by the same and that is why he has come to this Court.
10. 1 have considered the submissions of the learned counsel for the parties and have also gone through the report submitted by respondent No,
1. In the report, the position is the same as submitted by the learned Assistant Advocate-General. According to the report, "tentative zones have been demarcated. These proposals are yet to be confirmed by the Sugarcane Control, Board, Punjab."
I do not think it is necessary to give any authoritative decision on the points raised by the learned counsel for the parties because the matter is yet to be finally determined. However, I would like to observe that while finally, deciding the matter, the Sugar Cane Control Board must examine the matter de novo strictly in accordance with the statutory provisions of the Sugar Factories Control Act, 1950 and Rules framed thereunder without being prejudiced by the impugned letter.
11. With these observations, this petition is dismissed. There shall be no order as to costs.