Owners' plea dismissed by Sindh High Court JOURNALISTS WIN WAGE AWARD CASE

Owners' plea dismissed by Sindh High Court JOURNALISTS WIN WAGE AWARD CASE

By Ayub Jan Sarhandi

KARACHI, May 31: A Division Bench of the Sindh High Court headed by Chief Justice Musheer Alam dismissed all the three petitions of the newspaper owners and upheld the earlier verdict in favor of the working journalists in the Wage Board Award case , in a short order announced this morning.
Three different writ petitions were filed by the APNS and the media houses, challenging vires of the Newspapers Employees (Conditions of Service) Act 1973, 7th Wage Board Award and Powers of the Implementation Tribunal for Newspaper Employees.
With the announcement, the journalists and workers and their supporters in hundreds burst into jubilation raising slogans and marched from the court to the Press Club and to various newspaper offices in procession.
The petitions were i) CP 834/2004, ii)CP 1391/2004 and iii)CP 1151/2007 through which the petitioners inter-alia challenged the validity of the Newspaper Employees(Services Conditions)Act 1973, vires and justification of 7th Wage Award and the powers of the Implementation Tribunal for Newspaper Employees (ITNE), Islamabad.
The litigation was initiated by the media owners' right after the announcement of the 7th wage award. The award was supposed to the operative from July 1, 2000, but it could not be implemented, because the APNS challenged it in the court and refused to accept it as the legal document.
Not only this, the petitioners made the ITNE literally inoperative through restraining orders from the Sindh High Court.
The newspaper employees have been suffering for over a decade and continue work on salary package of 6th Wage Board Award under which the minimum salary and benefits for newspaper employees were fixed keeping in view prices of daily use items, POL, electricity, gas, etc. prevailing in the early 1996.
By other writ petitions, newspaper owners challenged the powers of ITNE, its constitution, jurisdiction for recovery of Wage Board Awards benefits under Land Revenue Act, and legality of the 7th Wage Board Award.
The learned bench after hearing the arguments from both sides had reserved judgments in all the three writ petitions ten months ago. The writ petitions were under adjudication before the Sindh High Court for over six years.
The prolonged litigation not only delayed the implementation of the 7th Wage Board Award for 11 years, but also resulted in blocking the formation of 8th and 9th wage boards. Under the Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) Act 1973 the wages of newspaper workers have to be reviewed every four years