September 27, 2007	Thursday	Ramazan 14, 1428

ISLAMABAD, Sept 26: The Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench on Wednesday sought a report from the state-run news agency, Associated Press of Pakistan (APP), on the issue of advertising 101 new posts and the risk it poses to the jobs of as many existing contractual and daily-wage journalists.

While accepting a writ petition for hearing filed by contractual employees, Justice Abdul Shakoor Paracha directed the APP management to present a report to the court containing para-wise comments on the issue within three weeks.

Some 38 contractual reporters, sub-editors and photojournalists have refused to appear in a written test being held on Thursday for recruitment against the newly-advertised permanent posts.

They are of the view that they had already appeared in a written test and had been interviewed for their contractual employment, besides having more than two years of working experience with APP, therefore, they should be regularised automatically.

“These contractual employees will not appear in the Thursday’s written test as this test and interview are for the fresh candidates only,” counsel for the petitioners, Shah Khawar, told Dawn.

He said the APP management could not take any action against these contractual employees for not reappearing in the written test as the high court had accepted the writ petition and issued notice to the APP management.

Earlier, Mr Khawar argued before the court that the information ministry’s advertisement had created a lot of confusion for the existing employees. The advertisement was floated following a recent visit of Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani to APP during which he had promised to regularise all of the 101 journalistic staff working there.

Mr Durrani, he said, had directed the APP management to regularise all these employees. But, the APP management had told him that a formal advertisement was necessary. That’s why, the post were later advertised.

Ironically, the new posts were not for the APP existing employees but were open to fresh candidates.

He argued that during the last days of the present government, there was an immense pressure on the management to do political inductions in APP at the cost of the existing employees.

There was a strong possibility that the existing 101 contractual employees would be removed from their posts and would be replaced by fresh faces who enjoyed support of some politicians and high-ups in the bureaucracy, he observed.

“I fear that these contractual employees who have given their precious years of careers to APP would be deprived of their jobs under the garb of tests, interviews and merits. I appeal to the court to provide them justice,” Mr Khawar said.

“After hearing the arguments of the counsel, this matter needs to be considered and examined,” Justice Paracha observed.

Of the 101 employees who have been asked to appear in the written test, 38 are contractual employees of whom 15 are working in regional offices and the rest in the news agency’s headquarters in Islamabad.

Some contractual employees told Dawn that a number of daily-wage employees had also decided to move the court in order to be exempted from the written test.

APP Managing Director Rai Riaz Hussain told Dawn that the advertised posts were for both the fresh candidates and existing APP staff. He said the posts had been advertised to follow the criteria of merit.

“The existing staff of APP will have to compete with the fresh candidates if they want to be regularised. The contractual employees had appeared in a test and interview which were held for contract base employment only,” he observed.

He said he could not further comment on the issue until receiving the court notice.