PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Thursday took notice of alleged non-payment of minimum wages and delay in payment of salaries to employees in media industry and sought a detailed report from provincial government in this regard.

A single-member bench of Justice Mohammad Ijaz Khan directed the secretary of information department, Matiullah Khan, to clear outstanding dues of newspapers on account of advertisements by July 30.

The bench was hearing a contempt plea filed by Council of Newspapers Editors (CPNE), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, against non-clearance of outstanding dues by the government on account of advertisements despite giving assurance to court in 2024.

“During course of hearing of this petition, the pathetic condition of the employees of various newspapers also came to light, who are, on one hand not being paid minimum wages as notified by the provincial government under Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Payment of Wages Act, 2013, and on the other, even these petty salaries are not being paid to them which is a clear violation of the aforesaid law,” the bench pointed out.

Orders release of outstanding dues of newspapers by July 30

The bench ordered information secretary to submit a comprehensive report about the said prevailing facts and circumstances in the print and electronic industry. A day earlier, the bench had summoned the information secretary after failure of information department to release the required cheques to newspapers.

Khyber Union of Journalists and Peshawar Press Club had also on July 15 requested PHC Chief Justice SM Attique Shah to take notice of the plight of employees in media industry before releasing the outstanding dues of newspapers.

They had claimed that information department had earlier made commitment that the payment of outstanding money of media houses would be made subject to payment of arrears on account of salaries and other outstanding dues of employees.

The contempt plea was filed by CPNE through its KP chairman Tahir Farooq.

Information Secretary Matiullah Khan informed the court that the advertisement section of his department was finalising cheques to petitioners on fast track so as to tally the same with the record of the department.

However, he said that keeping in view the number of those cheques and to confirm the same with the corresponding record of the department, the same would require some time, therefore, he might be provided more time to do the needful.

The bench directed him to complete the said exercise before the next date fixed.

The petitioner was represented by Advocate Mohammad Ihsan Mehsud, who stated that CPNE had filed a petition in 2023 wherein the high court was requested to declare as illegal non-payment of outstanding advertisement bills to the tune of around Rs1.8 billion since past several decades by the government.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2026