Wage award – SHC continues restraint on ITNE
KARACHI – The Sindh High Court extended on April 22 a stay order against the Implementation Tribunal for Newspaper Employees (ITNE) in respect of the cases pertaining to the Pakistan Herald Publications Limited (PHPL) and fixed May 18 for further hearing of its petition seeking a permanent injunction against the tribunal chairman on account of his alleged bias.
A bench, comprising Justice Shabbir Ahmed and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, observed at the end of the day’s proceedings that the respondent Herald Workers Union and its complainant members were free to approach the tribunal for transfer of their cases to any other competent forum. It declined a request by the respondent union’s counsel, Faiz Ahmed Ghangro, to make a direction to the effect to the tribunal.
It directed the SHC office to issue an intimation notice to the tribunal chairman, former justice Jawaid Nawaz Gandapur of the Peshawar High Court, saying that though a rejoinder contradicting the averments made in the petition had been filed on his behalf, there was nobody to represent him.
The bench also asked Deputy Attorney-General Nadeem Azhar Siddiqui to make a definite statement on the next date whether the respondent federal government or its ministry of labour and manpower was considering replacing the tribunal chairman. DAG Syed Zaki Mohammad, who appeared in the case on the previous date, had sought time to seek instructions from the government on the matter.
DAG Siddiqui questioned the maintainability of the petition, saying that both the respondents were based in Islamabad and the matter was beyond the SHC’s territorial jurisdiction.
It was filed in May 2003 when the Supreme Court was seized of an APNS petition against the seventh wage board award for newspaper workers and an application could have been moved in proceedings before the apex court. The tribunal was fully empowered to implement the wage award and was competent to consider the petitioner’s grievance.
Advocate Ghangro said a letter to the minister did not amount to bias and the petitioner never raised the issue before the tribunal. Its counsel only addressed letters to the tribunal.
Advocates Abdul Hafeez Pirzada and Munir A. Malik, the petitioner’s counsel, submitted that the APNS petition before the Supreme Court challenged the constitutional validity of the 1973 Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) Act and the seventh wage board award.
Levelling serious allegations of bias against the tribunal chairman, they said the question was not before the apex court. They referred to ‘the threats and warnings’ made by the tribunal chairman in his statements and press conferences.
The chairman had even criticized the APNS for approaching the SC against the wage award. The lawyers particularly objected to an endorsement made by the chairman on a letter written to him by the respondent union on July 25, 2002.
The note, addressed to the federal labour minister, said: “The owners are pushing me to the wall and, therefore I will have to resort to legal coercive methods. This is continuation of my telephonic conversation with you a couple of weeks ago. This is only for your eyes and may not kindly be marked to anybody else in the ministry.”
When the matter was brought to his notice, the chairman had issued them notices to explain how they came into possession of the letter. The lawyers said the chairman had rendered himself ‘demonstrably’ removable by his conduct and no remedy was available to the petitioner except to invoke the writ jurisdiction of the High Court.
Barrister Pirzada emphatically stated that there was a conflict of interest between the government (or its labour ministry) and the chairman, and that the two respondents could not be represented by the same lawyer or law officer.
As for territorial jurisdiction, the respondent union and its complainant workers as well the petitioner were based in Karachi and the tribunal also conducted its proceedings here.
The interim order extended on Wednesday was passed by a division bench, comprising Justices Anwar Zaheer Jamali and S. Ali Aslam Jafri. It said: “We expect that the respondent No 2 (the chairman) will refrain from proceeding with the cases of the petitioner.”
The petition first came up for preliminary hearing on May 13, 2003, and a division bench, consisting of Justices Mohammad Roshan Essani (since retired) and Khilji Arif Hussain restrained the chairman “from implementing the seventh wage board award till the next date of hearing”.
The petitioner’s counsel sought adjournment for a date in office or until after the summer vacation, but the bench granted the request of the respondents’ counsel for a date in May. When the Jang Group sought to be impleaded in the proceedings at the end of the hearing, the bench asked its counsel Muhammad Ali Azhar to move an application.
Source: Dawn
Date:4/22/2004
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