ISLAMABAD - The Islamabad High Court (IHC) will Monday (today) take up a petition filed against the appointment of Flight Lieutenant (retired) Khaqan Murtaza as the Director General (DG) of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
A single bench of IHC comprising Chief Justice of IHC Justice Athar Minallah will take up the petition which also seeks contempt of court proceedings against the government functionaries for making this appointment.
Capt Asim Nawaz moved the petition and cited Ministry of Civil Aviation as respondent. In the petition, referring to the November 27 order of the IHC, he alleged that Murtaza, an officer of the Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS), was not a qualified person for the highly technical and challenging post, especially when Pakistan is facing a ban of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on flying by the country’s airline pilots to 188 countries.
He further stated that it is to bring to the kind notice of this Court that ICAO has already issued serious safety concerns about CAA Pakistan and if not handled properly according to international aviation regulatory standards, it would have dire consequences against entire aviation industry of Pakistan.
The petitioner added that the government has tried to obstruct the process of the court through deceptive skills and got appointed DG against the rules, regulations and the Supreme Court ruling.
He continued that after PIA A320 crash and a lot of argument/splash on the media against inefficiency of CAA, the post of DG was advertised by the aviation ministry.
After that around 600 candidates applied for the post; among them 18 candidates were short-listed and interviewed by the defunct selection board on October 14 but no one was selected by the redundant board.
The petitioner said that thereafter, on November 7, the secretary aviation informed the cabinet that they could not find a single suitable candidate among 600 applicants, which was false, fabricated and frivolous statement by him (Respondent 1 in the petition), as all short-listed 18 aspirants were much more qualified than the present DG selected against the IHC orders.
Therefore, he prayed to the court to set aside the notification for the appointment of Murtaza and issue a directive for making this appointment on merit. He also requested the court to initiate contempt of court proceedings against the officials responsible for obstructing the court order.
The federal government has appointed Murtaza as the DG CAA on November 28. In this regard, a notification on the subject issued by the Establishment Division said,
“The federal government has appointed Flt Lt (Retd) Khaqan Murtaza, a BS-21 officer of Pakistan Administrative Service, presently posted under government of Sindh, as director general (of) Civil Aviation Authority, under section 10 of the Civil Servant Act, 1973 with immediate effect and until further orders.” Murtaza was working as principal secretary to the Sindh governor. He was also the chief executive officer of the Sindh Infrastructure Development Company Limited.