March 15, 2006	Wednesday	Safar 14, 1427

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KARACHI, March 14: The Sindh High Court on Tuesday issued notices to the Implementation Tribunal for Newspaper Employees (ITNE) and other respondents for April 4 in an application challenging the tribunal chairman’s March 1 order for recovery of arrears of the Seventh Wage Board Award from the Independent Newspapers Corporation (Pvt) Limited, Karachi, as arrears of land revenue to be paid to the petitioner employees within 15 days.

The application was moved by the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) in its pending petition against the Seventh Wage Board Award. Another APNS petition questioning the validity of the Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) Act, 1973, was also fixed for preliminary hearing on Tuesday and an identical application assailing the March 1 order has been made in the new petition.

A division bench comprising Justices Ghulam Rabbani and Zia Pervez issued notices in both the petitions and applications for April 4 but declined to suspend the operation of the impugned order of Justice (Retd) Tanvir Bashir Ansari, ITNE chairman. The impugned order was passed on a petition moved by 68 employees of the Jang group.

“Proceedings under Section 81 of the Land Revenue Act, 1967, will commence forthwith in case payments (from July 2000 to December 2003) are not made within the stipulated period,” the tribunal order said.

Arguing in favour of the application at length and seeking an interim stay against the impugned order, Advocate Abdul Hafeez Pirzada submitted that the tribunal had not complied with the procedure prescribed by Sections 81 and 82 of the 1967 Act. More importantly, the tribunal could not assume the authority of revenue collector or ‘mukhtiarkar’ under the Act. The order suffered from material illegalities and irregularities and the balance of convenience warranted an interim order in favour of the applicant society pending hearing of its application.

Representing the respondent workers union and the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, Advocates Rasheed A. Razvi and Akhtar Hussain submitted that they had neither notice nor copies of the application and were not in a position to controvert APNS counsel straightaway. They opposed any interim order as it would inordinately delay the proceedings and requested adjournment for a couple of days to enable them to advance their arguments.

Mr Pirzada said he was busy in an arbitration matter in London and would not be available before the end of March. He said his contentions may be noted in Tuesday’s order so that he could communicate the same to the tribunal chairman. April 4 was fixed as the next date by consent.