July 24, 2008	Thursday	Rajab 20, 1429

ISLAMABAD, July 23: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the government to formulate a new Haj policy and produce it before the court by the end of the month.

A three-member bench comprising Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, Justice Chaudhry Ijaz Yousaf and Justice Qaim Jan Khan took up the matter on a case moved by the Ministry of Religious Affairs in defence of its policy of allocating Haj quota to certain private tour operators. Some tour operators have accused the ministry of arbitrarily allocating Haj quota without any specified criteria of selection and opposed the idea of the court issuing an interim order and allow the ministry to allot quota only to the operators who got it last year.

Such a move, they said, would be unfair to those who had applied for the quota in 2006.

The directive to formulate a new policy was given when Attorney General Malik Mohammad Qayyum sought time after informing the court that the government was considering a proposal to form a committee to put in place a new policy. The committee would also address the points raised in the case, the AG assured the court, and said that all tour operators wishing to be involved in Haj would be considered by the committee.

On Tuesday, the apex court had ordered the attorney general to appear in person and inform it about the government’s Haj policy.

The government is required to produce the new Haj policy before the court by July 31 after which the case will again be taken up by the apex court on August 1.

Last year the ministry had promised to produce the Haj policy before the court but did not do so.

A number of tour operators who were denied what they called a reasonable quota by the ministry had moved the Lahore High Court saying that the ministry had arbitrarily allotted quota without any criteria of selection. The high court ordered the ministry to review its policy.

On July 12 last year, the Supreme Court had cancelled the provisional Haj quota allocated by the ministry and directed formation of an independent committee to scrutinise the provisional quota allocation and re-allocation.

The five-member committee to be formed by the government for the new Haj policy is likely to be headed by Law Minister Farooq H. Naek and may include Adviser to the Prime Minister on Religious Affairs Hamid Saeed Kazmi.

Advocate Ahmer Bilal Soofi, representing a number of private tour operators, requested the court to allow all old and existing quota holders, since there was not much time left for the process.

He also said that the names of old quota holders had been mentioned in the recent treaty signed by the ministries of Haj of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Talib Razvi, the counsel for the ministry, had submitted before the court that the Saudi government had reached an agreement with a Pakistani delegation pertaining to Haj policy and had imposed a condition that only those operators should be given quota who had rendered service last year.