PESHAWAR, Aug 20 The Peshawar High Court on Thursday questioned the fixing of sugar price by a federal minister and directed the provincial food secretary to fix the price keeping in view its quota of sugar with the Trading Corporation of Pakistan.

A bench comprising Justice Dost Mohammad Khan observed that the price should have been fixed by a committee headed by the prime minister and comprising representatives of the four provinces.

“This is a war-ravaged province and its inhabitants are not in a position to purchase sugar and other commodities at such high rates,” the bench observed and said that it would not allow profiteers and hoarders to exploit the masses during Ramazan.

“These exploitative elements should not bring the situation to the limit when poor people will be forced to come out and put on fire their industries,” it observed. The bench fixed Aug 27 for next hearing of the case.

About the announcement made by Federal Minister for Commerce Mian Manzoor Wattoo about fixing the sugar price, the bench wondered how a federal minister could fix the price of a commodity for the whole country.

It observed that it would have been appropriate to fix the price by a committee having representatives of the four provinces.

The bench directed the food department to take into possession their quota of sugar with the TCP and fix their own price for it.

PHC Chief Justice Tariq Pervez Khan had taken suo motu notice of news reports regarding artificial price hike and hoarding of daily-use commodities by shopkeepers and dealers across the province.

The chief justice had referred the case to Justice Dost Mohammad for further hearing. During the last hearing, Justice Dost Mohammad had directed the provincial food department and district administrations of the province to take action against black marketeers, profiteers and hoarders within one week.

Provincial food secretary Jamaluddin Khan informed the bench on Thursday that so far they had booked 1,023 shopkeepers for overcharging and recovered fines to the tune of Rs372,000 from them.

He said they had also seized 111,000 tons of sugar from different mills in the province.

Peshawar DCO Sahibzada Anees said the price review committee would hold meetings with different organisations, including those of meat sellers, nanbais, milk sellers, etc so as to control prices of daily-use commodities.

Justice Dost Mohammad observed that on the one hand people had been committing suicides along with their children and on the other the affluent class was involved in tax evasion.