ISLAMABAD, May 25: The appointment of an Information Group officer as director general of the APP has been challenged in the Lahore High Court, praying that a senior journalist from the news agency should be appointed as DG APP.

Mohammad Ilyas Bhatti, Bureau Chief of APP, Rawalpindi, in his constitutional petition before the Lahore High Court, Rawalpindi Bench stated that it had been a practice in the past that Grade I officers of the APP were appointed as DG.

The petitioner has impleaded the Federation of Pakistan through secretary information, DG APP and deputy secretary Establishment Division.

The petitioner stated that in the past director level employees had been elevated to the post of director generals. The petitioner stated that initially the APP was a private news agency but later was taken over by the government in 1961.

This news agency has now become the official news agency rather than a National News Agency which is a clear violation of the Taking-over Ordinance 1961.

He further stated that the training and conditions of service of Information Group officers was different from the training and conditions of service of journalists of APP.

He stated that Information Group officers were civil servants while the APP employees were initially not government servants as they were governed by the News Paper Employees Act 1973 and were part of newspaper industry.

It further stated that in the past when information group post were being filled by the DMG officer there was heart burning among the IG officers and finally they succeeded in capturing the slot of secretary information but in the case of APP employees the ministry had adopted a discriminatory attitude.