LAHORE, May 4: Justice Muhammad Saeed Akhtar of the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday directed the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) director administration to appear before him on May 23.

Justice Akhtar, hearing a contempt of court application moved by 16 contractual employees of PIA, said the PIA director administration and other officers would be jailed if the court’s orders of Dec 6, 2004 to regularise the services of the petitioners were not implemented till next hearing.

Sixteen PIA workers employed on contracts moved court seeking court’s orders for the PIA administration to give them incentives being offered to other PIA regular employees.

Petitioner’s counsel MA Ghani Chaudhry said the court had directed PIA Administration Director Wasim Bari on June 8, 2006, to treat all the petitioners permanent from the date of their appointment. The court gave PIA three months to implement the orders. But the orders were not followed even after the lapse of nine months.

He said the employees were being paid Rs3,150 per month and no other benefits and had been paid the same salary for the past 20 years. He said the new contractual employees were being paid Rs8,000 to Rs14,000 salary per month and regular employees more than Rs20,000 besides other benefits.

Ghani said the PIA chairman was guilty of contempt of court for not complying with the orders. He asked the court to order the PIA administration to pay the petitioners Rs20,000 per month as well as other benefits enjoyed by its regular employees.—Staff Reporter