APNS counsel ends arguments in Wage Board case
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court bench hearing the APNS petition challenging the Seventh Wage Board Award was informed on Tuesday that the petitioner organization, APNS, was willing to implement the wage board award, but only to the extent of journalists.
Barrister Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, the petitioner’s counsel, before concluding his arguments spanning over three days, reiterated his client’s offer that it was ready to implement the wage award if the classification of journalists was changed.
He said a naib qasid, working in any other industry, was drawing much less salary than a naib qasid working in newspaper organizations. The counsel termed this as discrimination against the newspaper industry and said the government was using the award as an indirect method to muzzle the press.
Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry observed that a naib qasid working in other organizations was not working late nights, as was the case with those working in the newspaper industry.
The two other members of the SC bench are Justice Sardar Raza Khan and Justice Falak Sher. Mr. Pirzada, stated that the issue involved in the petition was of public importance. Tracing the history of earlier challenges to the awards given by different wage boards constituted under Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) Act 1973, the counsel stated that it was challenged for the first time in 1993 by the APNS before the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court, after keeping it pending for quite some time, dismissed it for being infructuous. He said the ‘unilateral observation’ at the later stage of the order was unnecessary and could not be used as a rule of the court. He termed the SC observation that the petitioner association could not approach the Supreme Court under its original jurisdiction as ‘obiter dicta’.
The counsel stated that Sixth Wage Board Award was challenged before the Lahore High Court. On a query from the court, he said, the vires of the Newspaper Employees (Condition of Service) Act 1973 were also challenged in the petition before the LHC, but the court dismissed the petition.
He said an intra-court appeal was filed against the order of the single judge, which was still pending. The counsel stated that if the classification of journalists was not changed, the award would be applicable to lakhs of employees of the newspaper industry, and it would destroy it.
He claimed that due to implementation of wage board awards, the Press Trust newspapers had to be closed down. The counsel said he was not saying that the entire newspaper industry was not earning any profit, but a majority of APNS members would have to close down their operations as the financial burden would be too much for them.
Mr. Pirzada further stated that the wage board chairman enjoyed excessive powers, and no right of appeal was provided against his decisions. Senior Advocate Akram Sheikh, representing the PFUJ (Dastoor group), replying to the arguments, stated that the APNS petition was not maintainable as it did not involve matters of public importance.
He said the petition was filed in 2002 which remained pending for two years. He said the charge of indolence on the part of the respondents was wrong, and then he read out the court orders passed at the previous hearings.
The counsel said media empires were built on the blood and bones of working journalists, and they were being deprived of their lawful rights. He said it is the journalists, not the newspaper owners, who keep the nation informed.
He said the words ‘entertainable’ and ‘maintainable’ were not synonymous as was argued by the APNS counsel, and had different meanings. He said there was a plethora of case laws in which the courts consistently refused to hear the case on merits, without first satisfying themselves that the court had the jurisdiction to hear the case.
He said under SC rules, a single judge could not decide the question of maintainability of a petition in chamber. When the counsel stated that a five-member bench of the Supreme Court in its 1993 decision on an identical petition had ruled that the petition did not involve any matter of public importance, Justice Sardar Raza Khan had observed that the observation seemed misplaced as the petition was decided for its being infructuous.
The counsel was still on his feet when the court adjourned the hearing. The court asked the Supreme Court registrar to contact the secretaries of the ministry of information and the ministry of labour and manpower and direct them to have their counsel appear before the court on April 7, when the hearing will continue.
Source: Dawn
Date:4/7/2004
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