ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Tuesday reiterated before the Supreme Court that like other important government offices, the June 2013 Khawaja Muhammad Asif judgment has also become an impediment to fill the office of Chairman Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) lying vacant for many months.

The entire process of appointment of heads of government offices is standstill in view of the judgment, argued Attorney General Salman Butt before a three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk.

The court had taken up a case on PIA’s weak financial health on the applications moved by the Transparency International (TI), former PML-N Secretary General Iqbal Zafar Jhagra and Marvi Memon highlighting rampant corruption in the national carrier.

Explaining further, AG said the government had many names to be picked up for the appointment as the chairman PIA under Section 8 of the PIA Act 1956 but the real roadblock was the Khawaja Asif judgment.

If we don’t go by the commission, any appointment made by the government will be challenged in the courts of law and will be struck down, feared the AG.

The Supreme Court through the Khawaja Asif case had ordered the government to set up a commission for ensuring merits in all future public appointments. The judgment is also under review by the Supreme Court.

Earlier on July 24 also the AG had told the court that the judgment was creating difficulty in filling the heads of 22 important offices vacant for the last many months including the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and chairman Federal Services Tribunal (FST) Export Processing Zoo Authority, Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Karachi Port Trust, Vocational and Techni­cal Training Commission, Services Tribunal, Chairman Employees Review Board, Implementation of Tribunal of Newspaper Employees (ITNE), Intellectual Property Rights Organization, Chairman Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Pakistan Council of Research and Water Resources, Earthquake and Rehabilitation Authority (ERA), National Institute of Oceanography (NOI), National Trust Population Welfare (NTPW), Council of Works and Housing Research, Science Foundation, Director General Pakistan Institute of Management, Chief Executive Pakistan National Council of Art (PNCA), Managing Director Associated Press of Pakistan, Managing Director National Trust for Disabled, Director General National Institute of Electronics.

The court decided that the appointment of chairman PIA will be taken up along with other cases relating to the appointment of corporations to determine whether the appointments could only be done through the commission or the statutory rules of different corporations.

Referring to a sexual harassment case against Deputy General Manager PIA Capt Mrs Rifat Haye by Captain Tariq Khosa the Supreme Court ordered a specially constituted commission which also had show caused the offender to finalise its proceedings by Oct 23 when the case will be resumed.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2014