ISLAMABAD- The petition of the All Pakistan Newspaper Society (APNS) against the 7th Wage Board Award as well as the cases against the famous Taj Company are among some important cases that have been put on the cause list of the Supreme Court benches that will work here and in Lahore from April 21, 2003.
The Taj Company cases and also petitioners against the registrar of the co-operative societies will come up for hearing before the full bench headed by Justice Munir A. Sheikh in Lahore on April 21, 2003.
The other petition filed by the newspaper owners against the validity of the Wage Board Award and also the Pakistan Newspaper Workers’ Condition of Service Act has been fixed before the first bench here for April 23, 2003. Chief Justice Sheikh Riaz Ahmed heads the three-member bench.
Three benches, two divisions and one full bench will continue to sit for the next week in Lahore, while three other benches as well as five-member Shariat Appellate Bench will hear the cases at the principal seat of the Supreme Court in the Federal Capital.
While the attorney general’s deputies were preparing their comments on the petition of the APNS mainly on the point if the Newspaper Workers Act of 1973 was a valid piece of legislation, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (Dasturi Group) filed its reply here on April 19, 2003.
Holding the Act is a valid piece of legislation, Group’s Principal Counsel Mohammad Akram Sheikh described the APNS petition as “misconceived and unmaintainable” under a case law set by the nation’s highest court of appeals in 1993.
The reply also recalled a judgement by a five-member special bench that had not accepted a petition against the 5th Wage Board Award that had also invoked Article 184 (3) of the Constitution as it did not raise the questions of “public importance”.
The union has also refuted the petitioners argument that the impugned act was void under Articles 8, 14, 19 and 25 of the Constitution on any of the grounds raised by the newspaper owners.
Also the law was not discriminative of the newspaper as it singled out the newspapers from other industrial and commercial establishments.
It also questioned the contention that the Wage Board Award put the newspaper industry under “unbearable burden” financially.
It has also been argued that the Newspaper Workers Act was sanctioned by the legislature under the authority of the Constitution of 1973 and, thus, was a competent piece of legislation.
Barrister Abdul Hafeez Pirzada will lead the lawyers engaged by the newspaper owners, while Mohammad Akram Sheikh and Abid Hassan Manto will represent the two journalist unions.
Since Attorney General Makhdoom Ali Khan had sought an exemption from appearance on the ground that he had represented the APNS in a similar petition some time back, his Deputy Hafiz S.A. Rahman will appear for the federation.
Talking to newsmen here on April 19, 2003, the deputy attorney general said he would file his reply to the petition by April 21, 2003.
The Supreme Court had sought federal government’s comments on the contention that the act clashed with the Constitution at the preliminary hearing here early this month.
The Turkish construction company, Bayinder Insaat Turism Ticaret vet Sanayi that had contracted to build the Peshawar-Rawalpindi Motorway and had later suspended work has a petition seeking restoration of the work.
Justice Nazim Hussain Siddiqui and Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan will hear it on April 24, 2003.
Source: Business Recorder
Date:4/20/2003
