KARACHI, Oct 23: A division bench of the Sindh High Court admitted on Tuesday for regular hearing a petition of a bidders’ consortium for air time on PTV (channel 3), but at the same time recalled its earlier interim order of status quo and told those who would put programmes on air that they would do so at their own risk.
The constitutional petition of Combine Media (Pvt) Limited and 11 others had come up before the division bench comprising Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Ali Aslam Jaferi.
Allowing the application by consent, the court directed that an amended petition be filed within a week, arraying the parties mentioned in the application as respondents three to five.
PTV, one of the respondents, was represented by Naeem Bokhari, and the petitioners were represented by Mohammed Ali Mazhar and S. Saeeduddin Nasir.
It was the contention of the petitioner that its bid was rejected by the respondents without any valid reason. The impugned action of the respondent No 2 was mala fide and violative of the petitioner’s fundamental rights.
The court held that the contentions of the petitioner required consideration and, therefore, the petition was admitted with notice to the other respondents.
The petitioner had prayed for declaring the rejection of his bid without lawful authority, and to direct the respondent to accept his bid and grant air time accordingly.
It was also prayed to restrain the respondent (PTV) from starting any transmission on Channel-3 through any other party.
Since the possibility of interpretation of articles 19 and 25 of the Constitution might arise, the court also directed that the attorney-general should also be put on notice.
After hearing the petitioner’s counsel, the court was of the view that no irreparable loss was being caused to the petitioner and, therefore, it recalled the interim order passed earlier but subject to clarification that any of the parties stated to have been awarded a contract by PTV, would go on air or perform its obligations at its own risk and might be restrained from doing so in case the petition was allowed.
In view of the apprehensions expressed by the petitioner’s counsel, the court held that in case unnecessary adjournments were sought by any of the respondents, the court might consider passing an interim order afresh.
The court also clarified that those who had entered into agreement with the respondent and chose to go on air would do so at their own risk. The matter has now been fixed for regular hearing on Nov 28.
