ISLAMABAD, April 20: The federal government will firm up its view on a petition of All Pakistan Newspapers Society challenging the constitution of a wage board to determine salaries for the workers of newspaper industry, at a meeting at the labour ministry on Monday.

On the last hearing, the Supreme Court had issued notice to the federal government to file a concise statement, detailing its stance on the points raised in the constitutional petition.

The case is slated to be taken up for hearing by a three-judge bench on Wednesday. The federal government was expected to submit its response this week, but it could not, as the government stance had not been finalized.

An official told Dawn that the officials of ministry of labour, and the ministry of information and media development would hold a meeting on Monday to which government lawyers have also been invited, to decide what should be the government’s stand before the SC.

The APNS has challenged The Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) Act, 1973, in its entirety but it has also kept another window open, asking the apex court to limit its applicability only on the working journalists.

“Even if it be assumed that the legislature was competent to enact the Act on account of reasonable classification (which is vehemently denied) there is no justification whatsoever in extending the application of the Act to non-working journalists,” the petitioner association contended.

The bench, which would take up the petition on Wednesday, would consist of Chief Justice Shaikh Riaz Ahmad, Justice Mian Mohammad Ajmal and Justice Mohammad Nawaz Abbasi.

The petitioner association stated that the awards handed down by the successive chairmen, appointed by the government, were “edicts and Bills of Attainder imposing onerous and ex post facto burden on the petitioners and resultant restraints on the freedom and independence of press.”

Our Correspondent adds from Quetta: Federal Secretary Labour Khawaja Ijaz Sarwar has assured that the government would find a solution concerning the wage award of the newspaper workers through tripartite talks.

He was talking to a representative delegation of the All Pakistan Federation of Labour, which called on him here on Sunday.

The delegation apprised the labour secretary of the problems being faced by the labour community in Balochistan.