March 25, 2003	Tuesday	Muharram 21, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, March 24: The Supreme Court on Monday adjourned the hearing of a constitutional petition filed by the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) challenging the Seventh Wage Board Award and announced that it would be taken up on April 1st.

The case fixed for hearing on Monday was taken up by a three-judge bench, comprising Chief Justice Shaikh Riaz Ahmad, Justice Mohammad Nawaz Abbasi and Justice Karamat Nazir Bhindari.

Advocate Afzal Siddiqui informed the court that petitioner’s counsel Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, who was on a general adjournment, had returned to the country, but could not undertake any journey for another week. He requested the court to fix the case for any date after March 26.

Attorney General Makhdoom Ali Khan, who is a under notice, was not available to the Supreme Court from March 26 to 28, due to his engagements in the Lahore High Court. The respondents council did not object to the adjournment request.

It was decided that the petition would be taken up on the forthcoming Tuesday when all the lawyers would be available.

The court office had first returned the petition last year on the ground that it could not be filed in the Supreme Court under its original jurisdiction.

But on a appeal of the petitioner, Justice Munir A. Sheikh overturned the order of the registrar, and order that it should be placed before the court to decide whether it was maintainable or not.

The petitioner association has approached the Supreme court on the ground that fixing of its staff salary without its consent was violation of its fundamental rights, guaranteed under the Constitution.

The petitioner association has also questioned the classification of other employees of newspaper establishments along with the working journalists and termed it “patently discriminatory and unreasonable”.

The petitioner stated that even if it was accepted that the legislature was competent to enact the act, there was no justification for extending its application to non-working journalists.

The stage is now set for preliminary hearing of the case.

Prominent counsel Abid Hasan Minto and Akram Sheikh would represent the workers in the case.