ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has rejected a petition filed by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) against a Dec 4, 2014 order passed by Implementation Tribunal for Newspaper Employees (ITNE) requiring the authority to auction a plot at Zero Point and pay its proceeds to the workers of the now defunct daily The Muslim.

“The sole question before this court in the instant matter is whether or not the impugned order suffers from a jurisdictional defect or illegality,” said a four-page order authored by Justice Babar Sattar of the IHC and then answered the question by stating that “the counsel for the petitioner (Malik Javed Iqbal Wain) has failed to make out a case that it does. The petition is therefore without merit and dismissed.

The court said no document was produced on record before the court that CDA in exercise of its jurisdiction had cancelled the plot. Besides, the order of cancellation produced before the high court was dated May 14, 2015, which was after the ITNE order was passed and consequently on the basis of such cancellation order it cannot be claimed that the ITNE order suffered from any illegality, said the court order.

In its Dec 4, 2015 order, ITNE chairman Justice Rauf Ahmed Sheikh had said the plot had been allotted to Islamabad Publications (The Muslim) by the CDA and placed on the reserved category meaning thereby that it cannot be used for any other purposes.

Muslim Workers Union (MWU) President Chaudhry Ishaq and General Secretary Khan M. Nisar had pleaded the case before the ITNE.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2021