ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday admitted for regular hearing a petition challenging the recruitment to top positions of news, current affairs, marketing and digital media in the state-run Pakistan Television (PTV).

Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani issued notices to the PTV management and recently appointed chief news and current affairs Quatrina Hosain, chief human resource officer Mohammed Tahir Mushtaq, chief technology officer Nasir A. Naqvi, chief finance officer Usman Bajwa, chief digital officer Atif Zareef and head of marketing and content Khawar Azhar.

Petitioner Pervez Bhatti, general secretary of the PTV Employees Union, has challenged the appointments on the grounds that they had been made without adhering to the due process of law.

According to the petition, these appointments were never advertised; instead an advertisement for short-listing of recruitment was published in daily Pakistan Observer. Subsequently, a private head hunting firm was hired for making these top appointments.

The petitioner’s counsel, Ali Nawaz Kharal, adopted before the court that since the PTV was a public sector company and a significant state enterprise, it was imperative that appointments to such exalted positions should have adhered to requirements of due process and transparency and should have been in a manner free from any doubt with participation of a greater number of candidates from the open market.

He stated that the requirements and procedure to fill in the posts of a public sector company/enterprise/organisation had been laid down in innumerable judgements issued by the Supreme Court and the rules and instructions by the federal government.

“The entire process for making top appointments has been undertaken in a manner which leaves no doubt that the same was a non-transparent process which negated across the board competition and participation,” the petition alleged.

The petition requested the court to set aside these appointments.

Justice Kayani, after hearing the preliminary arguments, put off the matter for Sept 16.

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2020