ISLAMABAD: The government’s Haj policy for 2016 suffered a setback on Tuesday when the Supreme Court restored the previous year’s quota of 50pc for private Haj tour operators, which had been reduced to 40pc this year.

“For reasons to be recorded separately, the petitions are converted into [an] appeal and allowed as a result of which the quota of the private and public sectors is restored to that of the previous year’s 50pc each,” said a short order announced by Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali.

The controversy over Haj quotas landed at the Supreme Court when private Haj tour operators appealed a Sindh High Court verdict from April 15, 2016, rejecting their challenges to the Haj policy 2016.

A number of private tour operators, through senior counsel Akram Sheikh and Abid Zuberi, had asked the top court to set aside the new policy, which had reduced their quota from 50pc to 40pc. They maintained that the policy left the tour operators at the mercy of the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

The petitioners had argued that Haj operations had been carried out by public and private operators since 2005 and their quota had always been 50/50.

During Tuesday’s proceedings, the chief justice regretted the lack of confidence in national institutions, adding that their past actions had made their credibility so doubtful that fingers were pointed at them even if a decision was made in good faith.

Referring to the ministry’s stance regarding the approval of the Haj policy from a special committee — constituted under a judgement in the 2013 Dossani Travels case — Additional Attorney General (AAG) Waqar Rana argued that all committee members had been taken on board before taking a final decision on the quotas.

Moreover, the AAG said, the Haj quota system was an internal arrangement and had nothing to do with the Haj arrangements agreed upon between Pakistan and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The AAG explained that the ministry had split the Haj quota in the face of resolutions adopted by the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assemblies last year, as well as the ministry’s experience of the Haj operation in 2015, which was widely appreciated.

He also argued that the Dossani Travels judgment did not hold that the private sector’s quota will have to be increased, adding that the government’s decision was only open to judicial review if it mala fide intent was established.

But the bench was not convinced and blamed the government for opening itself up to litigation by not adhering to the 2012 agreement to keep private operators’ quota at 50pc. The court also observed that the government should have taken initiatives to formulate the new Haj policy and reduce the quota for private tour operators as soon as the Haj season ended in 2015.

The chief justice wondered why the government failed to take the private operators on board before taking such a drastic step, and rhetorically asked whether reducing their quota by 10pc did not prejudice the tour operators’ rights and condemn them unheard.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2016