KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Tuesday directed the provincial director (advertisement) to submit a statement showing year-wise amount paid by the information department to advertisement agencies till Feb 6.

A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar, passed this directive on a petition filed by the Council of Pakistan Newspapers Editors (CPNE) against the Sindh government through the chief secretary and the information secretary over non-payment of advertisement dues to its member newspapers.

At the outset, the director (advertisement) of the Sindh government’s information department, Zulfiqar Ali Shah, appeared and filed a report regarding compliance of the court’s last order.

He filed a statement mentioning that out of Rs4.6 million, Rs3,907,789 had already been paid by the information department and also produced copies of the cheques.

He said the remaining amount will be released soon, as stated by him, after checking some vendors’ code for such payment.

Dr Abdul Jabbar Khattak, the secretary general of the CPNE, pointed out that the petitioner has asked for the payment of its member publications for the fiscal years 2005-06, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18.

He further submitted that although partial compliance of the court’s order had been made by the Sindh government, a major portion of the amount was still payable by the provincial information department.

At this juncture, director Zulfiqar Ali Shah submitted that the payment had already been made to different advertisement agencies and they were directly liable to pay the advertisement dues to the newspapers.

The bench directed Mr Shah to submit a statement of the year-wise amount, which had been paid by the information department to the advertisement agencies that will be considered on the next date of hearing.

The matter was adjourned till Feb 6 by consent of the parties.

In May last year, the CPNE had submitted before the SHC that it was “aggrieved by the non-feasance and inaction of the respondents” with regard to advertisement bills. “This has caused an economic crunch and turmoil in the newspaper industry, resulting in its collapse and violation of fundamental rights of newspaper employees,” said the petitioner.

The CPNE further said the provincial government had been benefiting from the facility of newspaper advertisements, but it had failed to pay outstanding dues.

“Advertisement dues and liabilities lying outstanding against the provincial authorities are running into billions of rupees,” it said and had sought direction for the Sindh information department to clear all the dues.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2020