KARACHI: Milk-sellers move high court on price issue
By Shujaat Ali Khan
KARACHI, Feb 15: The Sindh High Court issued notices to the city, provincial and federal governments and milk producers for February 20 in a petition moved by retailers against the fixation of milk price at Rs28 per liter and restrained the respondents from taking coercive action in the meantime.
The Karachi Milk Retailers Association submitted through Advocate Naeemur Rehman that the price was ‘arbitrary and capricious’.
According to a study conducted by the provincial animal husbandry department, the commodity costs Rs32.85 per liter when it reaches the hands of wholesalers.
The retailers would be incurring considerable loss if they were to sell milk at Rs28, the price fixed by the city district government, the petitioner maintained.
It said there could be no restraint in trade and they had a right to earn their living under Article 18 of the Constitution.
The association also challenged the validity of the Price Control and Prevention of Profiteering and Hoarding Act, 1977, as it was a federal enactment that sought to regulate a provincial subject.
The retailers contended that they were being charge-sheeted under the impugned law while fines were being recovered under the Sindh Essential Commodities Prevention of Profiteering and Hoarding Act, 2006.
The retailers said they should be allowed a profit of 16 per cent over and above the cost to make their business viable.
APPOINTMENTS: The chief minister has ordered an inquiry into allegedly irregular appointments made in the various provincial departments, Advocate-General Anwar Mansoor Khan told a division bench of the Sindh High Court on Thursday. Appearing in response to a court notice in a petition moved by an unsuccessful candidate for the post of ‘workshop instructor’ in the Sindh education department, he informed the bench, comprising Chief Justice Sabihuddin Ahmed and Justice Faisal Arab, that the selected candidate secured 83 out of 100 marks in the recruitment test while petitioner Mumtaz Ahmed obtained 80 marks. There were six vacancies in all, out of which only one was decided to be filled, he said.
The chief minister, the Advocate-General said, had ordered an inquiry into appointments made in the various departments and the position would be clear after the completion of the probe.
He would place before the court the outcome of the inquiry in respect of the posts of ‘workshop instructors’ in the education department, the AG said. The bench adjourned further hearing to April 5.
GRAVEYARD CASE: Another bench comprising Justices Sarmad Jalal Osmany and Ali Sain Dino Metlo issued notices to the Baldia Town nazim and other respondents for February 21 in a petition against construction of a wall cutting across the Moach Goth graveyard.
Petitioner Edhi Amin submitted through Advocate Afaq Khan Shahid that the wall would considerably reduce the area available for future use of the graveyard. The Baldia Town administration was contrary to superior court judgments against conversion of amenity plots, he said.
POLL STAYED: The bench headed by the CJ, meanwhile, stayed the election of the managing committee of the PIA Co-operative Housing Society scheduled for February 18.
Petitioner Arifur Rehman contended through Advocate Shaukat Ali Shaikh that he was a member of the superseded managing committee but was allowed to seek fresh election by the Sindh Co-operative Housing Authority. The permission was subsequently withdrawn arbitrarily.
