LAHORE: The Lahore High Court annulled on Tu­es­day allocation of 15,000 Haj pilgrims’ quota to old private tour operators and ordered the Ministry of Re­ligious Affairs to allocate the same afresh based on merit.

Justice Khalid Mahmood Khan passed the order on a set of petitions filed by newly-registered tour operators. They had challenged the Haj Policy 2014 and allocation of quota among old tour operators.

The petitioners’ counsel said that neither the government had constituted a committee for Haj Policy 2014 as was directed by the Supreme Court nor uploaded details of the policy on the website of the ministry of religious affairs.

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He said the government had allocated a quota of 15,000 pilgrims among private tour operators allegedly on the basis of personal likes and dislikes.

He alleged that most of the operators who had been given the quota were defaulters and blacklisted. The counsel prayed to the court to set aside the impugned allocation of the Haj quota.

Justice Khan set aside the allocation and directed the ministry to equally allocate the quota of 15000 pilgrims among old and newly-registered tour operators.

Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2014