Islamabad-The Islamabad High Court Tuesday deferred the hearing in a petition challenging an advertisement published in newspapers inviting the international companies to privatise three airports of Pakistan.
A single bench of IHC comprising Justice Aamer Farooq was to conduct hearing of the petition but no proceedings could be held in this matter, as the cause list was cancelled due to his engagements.
Previously, the court had issued notices to the respondents directing them to submit their reply in the petition moved by Employees Unity of Civil Aviation Authority (EUCAA) through its Chairman Rao Muhammad Aslam.
The petitioner filed the petition through his counsel Hafiz Arfat Ahmad Chaudhary and cited Federation of Pakistan through Secretary Aviation, Aviation Division through its Secretary, Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) through its Director General, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Aviation and Chairman Privatization Commission of Pakistan.
He adopted in the petition that as per Section 3 (2) of the CAA Ordinance, the CAA is a body corporate, having perpetual succession and a common seal with power to acquire and hold property both moveable and immoveable. It can sue and be sued by the name of Civil Aviation Authority.
Petitioner stated that vide an advertisement dated 7 February 2017, CAA invited applications/proposals from international companies to privatize three international airports of Pakistan i.e. New Islamabad International Airport, Allama Iqbal International Airport Lahore and Jinnah International Airport Karachi and the last date for submission of applications/proposals has been fixed as 25 March 2017.
He added that it was stated in the impugned advertisement that the companies desirous of participating in the process shall be responsible for operation, management and development works while a few other functions to be performed by such companies included airport operation and management, administration and maintenance of airport buildings, allied infrastructure, equipment, systems and other facilities, found handling services and future expansions of airport infrastructure including runways, taxiways, car parks etc.
The petitioner contended that the unexpected rather shocking news concerning privatization of three major airports where major part of the workforce of CAA is deployed created a serious sense of insecurity among thousands of employees.
All of them were surprised that as to why major components of a profit yielding organization of Government of Pakistan are being privatized.
The counsel Advocate Arfat maintained that the financial performance report of CAA relating to the year 2015-2016 reflects that the CAA earned more than 50 billion rupees during the said year.
He added that the representatives of different trade unions working in CAA immediately convened a meeting and constituted a joint action committee to take up the matter with the management of CAA.
The matter relating to privatization of three big airports of the country got attention of the print and electronic media. Besides raising serious questions about transparency of the proposed transaction/s, various irregularities and illegalities were highlighted by the media persons.
Therefore, he prayed to the court to declare that the advertisement dated 07-02-2017, appeared in the print media whereby the Civil Aviation Authority has invited proposals/applications to privatize/hand over control of three major profit yielding airports of the country is illegal, unlawful, based on mala fide, violative of Section 6 of the Civil Aviation Authority Ordinance 1982/ Privatization Commission Ordinance 2000 and against the interest and security of Pakistan.
